Judging the Royals

Games » Minnesota Twins

Lee Judge

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Sometimes I feel like my job is watching a faucet and counting the drips. It’s absolute torture to watch pitcher after pitcher throw ball after ball. I refuse to believe guys in the major leagues can’t throw strikes. Hell, I know overweight, balding guys with smoker’s coughs who can throw strikes (Dayton, call me if you want their numbers).

Watch what most pitchers do 3-0 when they’re convinced the hitter isn’t swinging: boom, right down Main Street.

More often than not, I think it’s that they won’t throw strikes. They’re trying to be too perfect and hit the outer half of a microbe on the corners. After you’ve proven to yourself, your teammates, the GM, the owner, the fans and most of the hotdog vendors that you don’t have the ability to do that, wouldn’t another strategy be in order?

His team hands him a 4-run lead and Hochevar comes out for the bottom of the third and goes 2-0, then 3-1 on Hudson, gets him and then goes 2-0, then 3-1 on Mauer. Dude, you’ve got a 4 run lead! If they knock it to Manitoba they still won’t let either one of them run around the bases four times (although in Minnesota they might let Mauer do it twice).

With a four-run lead to start the 7th, Hughes comes in, walks the leadoff batter, throws a first pitch strike to Mauer who hits it so hard I can hear the ball screaming all the way to Ankiel…for an out (funny what happens when you let the rest of your team play) and then walks the next guy on four pitches. For the record: the two guys he walked scored and the one guy who did the thing that apparently scares pitchers to death (hitting the snot out of the ball) made an out.

Butler’s mental mistake…

Thinking he was fast. With 2 outs in the first, he crushes one off the right field wall and to everyone’s surprise (including his, judging from the expression on his face) decides to try for three. With 2 down, he should’ve stayed at second. He was already in scoring position and even if he made it to third, it was probably going to take a hit to score him anyway. He shouldn’t have tried for the triple unless he was going to make it easily, and he was out by so much I think the third baseman had a smoke while he was waiting for Billy to arrive.

Betancourt’s error…

The Royals need a double play ball to get out of a jam and get one. Betancourt is the pivot man. There’s a bunch of different ways to turn the double play and avoid getting killed by the runner trying to break it up. Betancourt came up with a new one…being nowhere near the bag when he caught the ball.

Umpires will allow the “neighborhood play,” but this was a “two-counties over” play. He’s also continuing the stylish “catch the popup down by your shoulder” move. As every announcer who’s seen this has said, sooner or later he’s going to drop one. Apparently, Trey emphasized catching pop flies above your head with two hands in spring training, but that was so long ago Betancourt’s forgotten.

This is why you don’t see many managers without gray hair…unless you count Terry Francona.

Outfield defense…

Rick Ankiel can go get it. I continue to be impressed by how he makes the difficult catches look routine with good reads, jumps, routes and speed. He’s making scoring an “outstanding defensive play” difficult. Some of the balls he’s getting to only look easy because he’s doing everything right before the catch.

In fact, the whole outfield is much better. You’d think the pitchers would figure this out, throw strikes and let Podsednik, Ankiel and DeJesus go get it.

(Sorry, I was trying to be positive, but these pitchers are killing me…maybe Trey and I can take up smoking together).