Games » Toronto Blue Jays
Apr21It's fundamental
Lee Judge
The Kansas City Star
Here are just a few of the theories I’ve heard that explain the Royals current losing streak:
They don’t care enough. They care too much. Alex Gordon needs to have his eyes checked. Eric Hosmer needs to go back to the minors. Greg Holland needs to be the closer. Greg Holland needs to go back to the minors. Jarrod Dyson needs to be the lead-off hitter. Billy Butler needs to be the first baseman. Ned Yost has lost the confidence of the team. Jeff Francoeur should not buy pizzas for opposing fans. The team needs to get in more fights. Ned Yost needs to be fired. Dayton Moore needs to be fired. The Glass family should be impeached (or whatever it is you do with owners you don’t like). Jonathan Broxton lost that game in Oakland on purpose because he didn’t like what someone said to him. There is a plot against Johnny Giavotella. Ned Yost stays with pitchers too long. Ned Yost doesn’t stay with pitchers long enough. Yuniesky Betancourt is the anti-Christ. (I exaggerated a bit on the last one, but not by much.)
First-base coach Doug Sisson has another theory: The Royals aren’t playing good fundamental baseball.
In Saturday’s game, starter Luis Mendoza threw some low strikes with a good downhill plane. At other times, his ball flattened out and stayed up in the strike zone. Guess which ones got hit? When a pitcher falls behind, he gets into “fastball counts” Counts of 2-0, 2-1, 3-0, 3-1 and 3-2 (depending on the situation) are considered fastball counts — a count in which the pitcher needs a strike and a fastball is his best chance of getting one.
Give a major-league hitter a fastball when he expects a fastball, and bad things tend to happen. Mendoza threw a 2-1 fastball to Kelly Johnson — single. Mendoza threw a 2-1 fastball Eric Thames — double. Everett Teaford threw a 3-1 fastball to Brett Lawrie — single. Teaford followed that up with a 2-1 fastball to Colby Rasmus — home run. Kelvin Herrera threw way too good a pitch at 0-2 and gave up a home run to Edwin Encarnacion. Herrera threw another 2-1 fastball to Colby Rasmus — home run.
Throwing low strikes and staying out of fastball counts are a big part of playing good fundamental baseball. As general manager Dayton Moore told me the other day, “Until we execute, we’ll lose.”
But I still think someone should make sure Yuni isn’t the anti-Christ.
Two-strike approach
I asked manager Ned Yost after the game whether the Royals’ two-strike approach was a concern. Royals hitters have struck out looking with runners in scoring position an awful lot. Ned said he thought the hitters were sometimes being too picky and needed to get those balls in play. That’s part of turning this thing around.
Corrections
I went back and added a couple of mental errors to Friday night’s game. As I have said before, it is easier to know what is going on when the team is here in town — I can go ask somebody. Apparently, the Royals’ base-running rule on line drives that are head-high or lower is to go back to the bag.
I had always heard “freeze on a line drive,” but as Sisson pointed out, what good does that do? If a base runner has taken a secondary lead, he still is too far away from the bag. So on Friday’s triple play, Yuniesky Betancourt was doing the right thing — heading back to the bag. Unfortunately, the first baseman was closer to bag than Yuni was.
Alex Gordon, on the other hand, took a step and froze. By the time he saw that the ball had been caught, it was too late. Sisson told me that going back to the bag on line drives may mean a runner can’t score from second base, but that’s better than a double or triple play.
The other mental mistake goes to Alcides Escobar for stealing third base with the Royals trailing by two runs in the ninth inning. He was not the tying run, and he should have been able to score on any base hit. The Blue Jays were in a “no doubles” defense, which meant the throw after a base hit was going to second base. (You can spot this from the stands. The signal is a hand behind the head.) The Jays didn’t care about a run scoring and preferred to keep the double play in order.
Sisson pointed out that if the right-handed pitcher, Sergio Santos, had pulled an “inside move” (picking the front foot up and spinning back toward second), the game would have ended on a pickoff. The risk was not worth the reward.
Plays such as this are a result of players pressing and taking risks, which result in poor fundamentals. Baseball is a calculating game. The emotions that some fans want to see just makes things worse. George Brett’s personal mantra in clutch situations was “try easier.”
But what does he know about baseball?
Who knew? I did the math and figured out that every 0.10-second delay when a pitcher delivered the ball to home plate meant 2.28 feet. Wrong again. Doug Sisson said it actually is two running steps. So a pitcher who takes 1.3 seconds to throw the ball home means you’re out — 1.4 can mean you’re safe. Easily.
Early work
Before the game, third baseman Mike Moustakas was fielding slow rollers while Royals third-base coach Eddie Rodriguez watched. Like everything else the team does, this play was being broken down into its smallest parts. If Mike’s head came up too soon, he was likely to miss the ball. The level of the ball dictated the arm angle used. In the past, Mike wanted to straighten up and throw over the top. Eddie explained that the time lost while standing up would not be made up by the throw.
So Mike has to get a feel for firing the ball from underneath, while bent over. Some of the throws were on target, a few weren’t. “If you’re going to miss, miss to the outfield side,” Eddie said. I asked him what that meant, and he explained that balls thrown from this extreme angle tail to the right. Miss on the outfield side, and the ball may tail back to the first baseman. Miss on the infield side, and the tailing ball will pull the first baseman into the runner.
One more thing: The throw has to be made off the right foot. When throwing off the right foot, the body is open toward first base, and the throw are easier. Throw off the left foot, and the body is closed, and the throws get much more difficult. Like most things you don’t have to do, when a pro does it, the whole thing seems easy. Watch how many things have to be done right, and you get a new appreciation for the play.
Two things 1.) On this blog’s home page, we have a video of this play with Eddie demonstrating the correct procedure. 2.) Mike made this play in last night’s game — by straightening up. I asked him afterward whether Eddie was on him about not throwing from underneath. Mike said he just wasn’t comfortable with that arm angle yet and will break it out in a game when it was ready.
Slow rollers to third
Kansas City Royals third base coach Eddie Rodriquez explains how to play a slow roller to third with Lee Judge. 4/21/12 (Video by John Sleezer/The Kansas City Star)
Betancourt
Gordon
Hosmer
Jim Fetterolf
1 year, 1 month agoJust to get ahead of the curve and blow a little sunshine, this has just got to be killing the kids. They have the talent, they have the passion and drive, some are crushing the ball but right at fielders, but the effort is there and results will come. Only thing to do is play through and learn the lessons of pressure and how fickle some fans can be.
Lee, give me an opinion on the singles Luis Mendoza gave up. Is this another case of seeing eye grounders, maybe the Jays doing a good job with hit and run, or is Luis leaving the ball up and giving up liners? I like Mendoza’s back-story and have been rooting for him, but Felipe Paulino’s about ready to come back so the leash is short.
Let’s all hope that Danny Duffy brings his “Ace” face and attacks hitters. We need a stopper right now and that is a step DD should be able to take in his growth; trust the stuff, don’t get cute, and give us seven strong innings.
Curtis Ruder
1 year, 1 month agoI have been cheering for Mendoza, too. I hoped that he really had learned something new in AAA last season. But given his low strikeout totals, he had an absurdly low ERA, especially for the PCL.
Unfortunately, baseball wise, I don’t see him as much more than organizational depth, along the same lines as Mazzaro or O’Sullivan. If I recall correctly, he would have to pass through waivers to be sent down.
A quick point alluded to earlier about wanting to have a couple of long relievers on the roster. No offense to the players involved, but that is what Omaha is for. If we run Teaford out there for four innings and he is toast for a couple of days, then send him down and bring up a guy like Mendoza or Mazzaro. There seems little need to spend two of the 25 spots on long relievers.
Curtis Ruder
1 year, 1 month agoOh, and I have to say, they really need to shelve the Amos Otis “This is Our Time” ad. Most of them are bad enough, but Amos saying “There is nothing like homefield advantage. Kansas City, this is Our Time” is officially ridiculous at 0-8. We probably need to notch a home win before breaking that one out again.
Steve Yeakel
1 year, 1 month agoLee - I love your work on here, and know that it depends on your being nice and respectful to the players and coaches. So this may not be a question that can be answered on this site, and I mean no disrespect, just trying to understand. I have always heard the term “well coached team” as a team that is properly executing the fundamentals because the coaching is successful/effective, repetitive enough and emphasized enough, to make the difference on the field. So with the lack of fundamentals described this time, and the many other base running outs and called third strikes and dropped pop ups and other seemingly excessive fundamental mistakes we have seen, way too many to be justified as just aggressive, how much of this should be laid at the feet of the coaches? I thought our whole emphasis was to be really good at the fundamentals, and it seems we are really bad.
Terry Payne
1 year, 1 month agoI remain unconcerned re: the losing streak. No one expected them to seriously compete this season. Learn this season, compete next. I am most impressed by Mous. That guy plays with his heart exposed. He’s what used to be called a “gamer.”
Lee Judge
1 year, 1 month agoJim: Fair point about seeing eye grounders. If a pitcher’s job is to get the ball hit on the ground and he does it—but it’s not at somebody—he still did his job.
Yost thought Mendoza’s pitches had good downhill plane at times and came in flat and up at others. He can’t be inconsistent about that and be successful at the same time.
Dayton Moore made an interesting point the other day: September call-ups can look great because they’re excited and have so much energy at a time when the veterans are just grinding out the last few days of the season.
These kids are finding out what it’s like to compete on the big-league level when everyone is playing with intensity.
There has been spectaculr bad luck: I’ve been seeing Hosmer and Gordon hit the ball hard, but right at someone. Keep hitting the ball hard and good things happen (they both homered last night), but they also both hit shots at a fielder.
This losing streak may serve as a wake-up call. I liked Ned’s point: use this to figure out how to handle stress. That skill is going to be required if this is going to be a playoff team in the next few years.
Lee Judge
1 year, 1 month agoCurtis: Not my best subject, but would you run out of options on a player if you keep sending them up and down to Omaha?
(Shows how little I know about the business side of baseball—which is why I tend to stay out of it.)
I can see how having two guys capable of long relief or spot starts would be desirable—as long as you’re still comfortable bringing them in for shorter stints. You wouldn’t want two guy sitting in the pen waiting for a blowout.
The original plan was for Mendoza or Paulino to be in the rotation—whichever one wasn’t, would be in the pen.
But we totally agree about the “Our Time” campaign. No matter how much fans think they want the team to win, they probably can’t hold a candle to the people who came up with that slogan.
Lee Judge
1 year, 1 month agoSteve: Well, I’d like to think I’m nice and respectful to everyone, not just the Royals coaches. (Although, once in a while a reader pushes my buttons.)
I also think some people in the media like to ask “loaded” questions in an effort to sound tough. After getting thrown out on the bases, Eric Hosmer was asked if, “He knew he had lost that game.”
It might make you feel good to ask that, but you’re not going to get a very good answer—mainly because it’s a dumb question. No one thing loses any game.
Asking something like that might make you feel tough, but then it’s about you—not getting good information for your readers.
If you say, “Talk to me about getting throw out on the bases” Eric will talk to you and explain things from his point of view. That gives you a chance to question his reasoning and see if he has an answer to that.
So, yeah, I don’t walk up to the coaches and say, “Hey, what the hell’s going on around here?”
If you approach them correctly, everybody—players, coaches, the manager, the GM—is fairly open to admitting a problem. Sometimes surprisingly open. And the longer you’ve been around, the more they trust you with that information—as long as you have a reputation for giving people a fair shake.
But I don’t think the coaching is the problem. I stood on the back fields of Surprise for two weeks and watched the work going on. The coaching was fantastic.
It may be hard to credit all this to pressure, but youth and inexperience will make you do some crazy things. Even the veterans stray from the game plan, trying to turn things around. “If I hit a home run here, we’re tied up” thinking instead of following the Kevin Seitzer “stay-up-the-middle” approach.
I think the coaching is fine, they just need to get everyone to listen to it. If you give someone good advice, but due to their excitement they ignore it, whose responsibility is that?
But getting people to take a calm approach when they are sharks in the water isn’t easy. I’m pretty sure Dave Eiland wants the pitchers to throw strikes, but you get someone out there who decides to dial it up under pressure and bad things happen.
Finally, in my experience, they don’t duck responsibility. Yesterday, Doug Sisson said it ultimately falls on him, he’s the base running coach and he’s got to get this cleaned up. When things are going right, his job is easy—when things are going wrong, he earns his money.
Lee Judge
1 year, 1 month agoTerry: Fans were very excited to have a better team on the field in 2012. Most people who know the team well were predicting .500 or a little better. (Which is still a better team.)
Privately, some people told me don’t be surprised if we get off to a rough start. We’ve got an awful lot of young players who haven’t been through the excitement of opening day and the beginning of a big league season.
I don’t think anyone expected it to be this rough, including me.
If you believe the “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” philosophy—not sure I agree with that one 100%—they can use this streak to be better players down the road.
Unfortunately, that point on the road seems to be getting further away every day.
Ron Haefner
1 year, 1 month agoAnother reason..bad karma curse placed on Royals when they fired Frank White. He was part of the Royals “force be with you” feeling. I am not as eager or as supportive as in the past because of that. I think the Frank White change was indicative of changing out people who were excellent at their job and provided positive, critical feedback with people who didn’t challenge, followed the party line and now have lost respect of the players. This is not the players fault, they are too good for this. Unfortunately, this will not change because it is a management forced issue. Too bad.
Don DeCelles
1 year, 1 month agoThis storm will pass, but by the time the debris is cleared, the W-L record will be too far below sea level for these guys to have any reasonable shot at remaining in a pennant chase. That’s disappointing - I thought this year might be a good opportunity for these young guys to experience the chase, even if they were still a few key pieces short. This has got to be the proverbial feces in the punch bowl for Dayton and ownership with the All-Star game approaching.
Lee - the Royals have been a poor fundamentals team for a couple of decades. They are better now than they have been since Brett’s days, but I still see too many missed bunt attempts, aggressive swings by a batter on the first pitch after the previous batter walked on four pitches, etc. I wonder if the coaching staff (even better if implemented by the players) shouldn’t start fining players for bone-headed decisions.
Aaron Cooper
1 year, 1 month agoThey are losing because the others teams have more talent. We are losing because the other hitters are hitting better against our pitching than our hitters are hitting against their pitching. Simple as that. They have more talent. Fundamentals has very little to do with it and is nothing but an excuse designed to detract from the real issue, which is that DM is clueless and has once again been embarrassed by the other GMs in this league.
This is the 2012 American League, not the 1910 National League. Games are won with talent, hitting homers, and striking guys out.
zack_delmont
1 year, 1 month agoEveryone seems to be stabbing in the dark for the cause of the losing streak. Teams often win even with the mistakes KC is making. To blame the marketing department is a new all-time low for KC. Never thought I’d hear that one.
Definitely experiencing a team slump. It likely comes down to someone tossing a dirty ball cap in the can when they shouldn’t have. I suspect Billy Butler. He’s such a diva.
Don DeCelles
1 year, 1 month agoAaron, you state the obvious by saying teams with more talent have the best chance to win. However, the Royals won the 85 World Series with less talent than several teams in the major leagues that year. They also failed to win at least on other World Series with a team that had more talent than virtually all other ML teams prior to 85. Dayton has done an excellent job of building a solid foundation upon which this team - albeit several pieces shy of a great team - can compete. Your comment that Dayton is clueless is off base in my opinion. He is handcuffed by the economics of MLB - and is going about building a team that will compete in the only fashion that ensures a quality product for the longhaul. I don’t think the majority of fans in KC would want them to go out and blow their wad on a half-dozen high-priced FA’s in order to win for a couple of years before the exodus begins. And even if they wanted to do that, attracting top-tier FA’s to KC at this point is not even possible.
Lee Judge
1 year, 1 month agoRon: You’re not alone in disliking the change of announcers, but that decision was not made by the baseball people.
Those people are not afraid to hear dissent. They kept Jason Kendall around partially because he’ll tell you exactly what he’s thinking—whether you want to hear it or not.
Lee Judge
1 year, 1 month agoDon: I never thought this was a playoff team—based on what I’d heard, but you’re right, even playing .500 baseball will now be extremely difficult.
Lee Judge
1 year, 1 month agoAaron: Well, that’s a new one on me and everyone who has ever played, coached or managed the game. They’ll be surprised to find out that good fundamentals do not affect results.
Lack of talent did not cause a triple play the other night—poor fundamentals did.
Everybody who was realistic knew the Royals starting pitching was going to be short on talent, but Dayton Moore, who seems to be at fault for everything, has provided a huge upgrade in position players. Especially on defense.
Jim Fetterolf
1 year, 1 month agoSo, Aaron, which starting talent is not talented? Hosmer? Moose? Esky? Gordon? As I remember, the Jays don’t have a single starter equal to those four besides Jose Bautista. From what I see this series, the Jays are winning on ground balls and our studs hitting “At’em” balls.
“Fundamentals has very little to do with it and is nothing but an excuse”
Fundamentals have everything to do with almost any endeavor in life. Throwing low strikes on corners is among the most fundamental of efforts in pitching, as Justin Verlander showed us the other night.
Just a question, Aaron: We fire GMDM today and make you GM. What are your first three player moves, as I assume you fire Ned Yost as your first official action? Not trying to be snippy, but as you can guess I’ve been following the “Fire GMDM” meme elsewhere from Rany on down for a few years and this year’s seems based solely on Yuni and Quinteros as examples of supposed incompetence, as well as not signing two FAs from the NL, one of which has degenerative disc disease and the other of which so unwanted by the 29 better GMs that he signed a one-year deal with the Nats.
Lee Judge
1 year, 1 month agoZack: I haven’t heard anyone blame the marketing department for playing poor baseball. I have heard people blame the marketing department for a dumb slogan that was almost sure to backfire.
Lee Judge
1 year, 1 month agoOK, time to go to the park. These day games after night game are a killer. Have fun arguing about fundamentals in my absence.
I think everybody already knows what side I’m on.
Jim Fetterolf
1 year, 1 month ago“There seems little need to spend two of the 25 spots on long relievers.”
Curtis, that is a very good point. One Longy should be sufficient.
On Luis Mendoza, I gave it some thought and I’m leaning toward the idea that his head failed him, gave up a couple of BABIP grounders, then tried to overthrow to get out of it and an overthrown fastball, being flat and straight, is also known as batting practice. Luke Hochevar had that problem in the past, Felipe Paulino also. Part of the learning curve is understanding that a player has to stay within himself and have a short memory, forget the last pitch, remember the mechanics, and concentrate on the next one.
Aaron Bailey
1 year, 1 month agoRegarding Curtis’ though on shuffling long relievers back and forth, this wouldn’t use up more than one option for each of those players, but it would use one up (whereas now, Teaford hasn’t had an option used on him yet this year). The bigger problem is when a player is sent down, they can’t be recalled for ten days (unless there’s an injury) so it would take 3 different pitchers to be shuffled around, which would put a big strain on the minor league staff (which gets one less roster spot than the majors). While there is some truth to your statement that the AAA team is there to help the parent club, it is primarily there to develop the future, and I’d hate to see Montgomery have to throw extra innings because the relievers were used up in KC. Another problem would also be with the union as this action would cost Teaford his time serve for arbitration and free agency.
Greg Tatro
1 year, 1 month agoWell if Yuni is the anti-Christ…he should start abusing his power and get to those groundballs quicker.
Seriously though the losing streak is probably still the snowball affect from the last Oakland game that was blown and then trying to impress the fans at home. I could see this team get on a good winning streak when things finally click.
Curtis Ruder
1 year, 1 month agoBottom line is on the list of things people need to be worrying about, whether we use an option on Teaford, Holland, Collins, etc. is really far down the list.
Totally agree that the minor leagues are there for development. I had a good friend who played in the minor leagues for seven or eight seasons, and his thought was that each team had a handful of guys who were big league prospects, and the rest of the team was there to assist their development. You wouldn’t alter Montgomery’s workload, but you could sure alter Mazzaro or O’Sullivan for that extra inning.
Just to be clear, I don’t blame the marketing department for the losses. I just blame them for making me throw up in my mouth every two innings when I hear about this being our time.
Darrell Pierce
1 year, 1 month agoIn the immortal words of Crash Davis, “They are kids. Scare them!”
Tell Duffy if he want to pick ay corners instead of trusting his stuff, he can do so in Omaha. And any variation of the same for every other young guy.
Rich Starnes
1 year, 1 month agoI don’t see that anyone answered this “question answer” you gave before:
“Curtis: Not my best subject, but would you run out of options on a player if you keep sending them up and down to Omaha?”
An “option” covers an entire year. You have three option years after putting a guy on the 40-man when you can send a guy up and down as many times as you like. So a pitcher with options, like Teaford or Herrera, can be shuttled back and forth several times in a season, but that only counts for one option. A player out of options, like Mendoza, cannot be shuttled like that—every time you send him down, he must be cleared from the 40-man roster and placed on waivers and thus exposed to other teams.