Games » Seattle Mariners
Jul27Last place
Lee Judge
The Kansas City Star
The Royals are now tied with the Minnesota Twins for last place in the division. There are reasons for this. Kansas City has lost three-fifths of its starting rotation and has had injuries to its starting catcher, center fielder and closer. A team that was remarkably lucky in terms of injuries in 2011 has been remarkably unlucky in 2012.
Injuries aside, the Royals also are in a stretch of poor play. The Seattle Mariners, hitting .223 against everybody else, are hitting well over .300 against the Royals. In this series, the Royals have had six hits and scored two runs in the last 18 innings against another last-place team.
The only good thing about the way the Royals have been playing since the All-Star break is that it will be very hard to keep playing this poorly. Let’s hope the turnaround starts soon.
First inning: Alex Gordon takes the first pitch of the game, a 90-mph fastball for a strike on the outer half. Leadoff hitters often take the first pitch of the game in hopes of having a long at-bat and forcing the opposing pitcher to show all his pitches early. Pitchers, on the other hand, want to reveal as little as possible and will often go as far as they can throwing nothing but fastballs. Gordon sees five pitches, all fastballs, and grounds out to short.
Seattle’s Blake Beavan throws his first breaking pitch of the game to Alcides Escobar. It’s a slider, the eighth pitch of the game. Alcides singles, and Royals first-base coach Doug Sisson can be seen leaning in to Escobar’s ear, reminding him of Beavan’s delivery time. (Doug either said “1.4,” or I’m a lousy lip-reader.)
This isn’t revealing anything — both teams know every pitcher’s delivery time. Based on those times, both teams also know who is likely to steal. A pitcher’s delivery time of 1.4 is about average, and, assuming that Seattle catcher John Jaso is also about average when throwing a ball to second base (2.0 seconds), the guys who can straight steal are probably Escobar, Chris Getz and Lorenzo Cain, when he’s healthy.
Other players in the lineup would be the situational base-stealers (Gordon, Jeff Francoeur and Eric Hosmer), who can steal a base if the Royals can pick a breaking pitch to run on. (Friday night, the Royals fell behind early, and the stolen base was never a factor.)
In the bottom of the inning, Hosmer gets a ground ball hit by Seattle’s Michael Saunders and, instead of flipping the ball to pitcher Jeremy Guthrie, decides to tag first himself. Replays show Hosmer beat Saunders to the bag, but the umpire calls the runner safe. Eric’s decision makes what should a routine play a bang-bang play, and the Royals pay the price when Jaso hits a three-run home run, driving in a runner who should have been out.
Second inning: With Billy Butler on third and nobody out, Mike Moustakas is looking for a pitch up in the zone, a ball he can elevate and hit to the outfield, scoring Butler. Beavan gives Moose two fastballs up, but too high up. Mike fouls one back, then pops the next fastball to third base.
When a player fails, he often asks a teammate to “pick me up.” He’s hoping the next guy can do something to erase the mistake he just made. Salvador Perez picks up Moustakas, hitting a sacrifice fly and driving in the run that Mike left on third. Mariners 3, Royals 1.
In the Mariners’ half of the inning, Guthrie gives that run, and another one, right back. The Mariners have sent 14 batters to the plate, and the Royals haven’t gotten all the way through their order yet. Long reliever Everett Teaford is already warming up.
Third inning: Guthrie seems to make an adjustment and will not give up another run for the next three innings. In the first two innings, despite the fact that many of Guthrie’s pitches were down in the zone, the Mariners were dropping the bat head and effectively golfing balls mid-thigh or lower. TV announcers Ryan Lefebvre and Rex Hudler discuss “downhill angle” on pitches and whether Guthrie’s release point is so low that even pitches down in the zone are hittable since they’re still relatively flat.
That could explain balls down in zone getting hit, but if this is what’s happening, there’s no way pitching coach Dave Eiland hasn’t noticed. Guthrie has only been with the Royals a short while, and if his release point needs to be altered, that will take some time.
Fourth inning: Hosmer starts a 3-6-3 double play, the most difficult double play there is. They don’t happen often. Fans should enjoy one when they see it.
Fifth inning: Francoeur strikes out for the second time in the game. Francoeur has struck out 10 times on this road trip alone. The rule of thumb in the big leagues is that a hitter gets one hittable pitch in each at-bat. Miss it, and the hitter is still at the plate, facing a pitcher who can now reach into his bag of tricks for something off-speed or out of the zone. Frenchy is missing hittable pitches.
Sixth inning: Guthrie gives up his sixth run, a homer to Mike Carp, gets a groundball out, then gives up a hit, and is done for the evening. The Mariners have lefties at the top of the order, and manager Ned Yost brings in Tim Collins, who immediately gets a double-play ball, and the Royals are out of the inning.
Neither team will score again. Mariners win 6-1.
Innings-eaters
(This was written before Jeremy Guthrie’s first start. So far, Guthrie has avoided leaving the game early, but has yet to come close to giving the Royals a quality start. Nevertheless, I still thought Chris Getz and Jeff Francoeur had interesting things to say about pitchers known as “innings-eaters.”)
Jeremy Guthrie has been described as an “innings-eater,” and Getz thinks that’s a good thing. His theory is you don’t eat innings if you’re not getting outs. Last Sunday morning, before the Royals left on the current road trip, Getz and Francoeur talked about pitchers, and both agreed there aren’t that many true top-of-the-line aces around. Most teams have to make do with guys who may not be headed to the Cooperstown, but if they can get you to the seventh inning with a chance to win, they’ve done their job. Chris and Jeff agreed teams can use more quality-start guys, guys who pitch long enough to avoid middle relief and get you to the back end of the bullpen.
Getz and Francoeur also agreed you need a couple of stud relievers for the eighth and the ninth innings. If your team is leading after seven, you don’t want to lose those games. But if those innings-eating pitchers can largely avoid the middle relievers, you don’t have to spend a lot of money on guys who don’t get used as much.
How a bloody nose may be a dream come true
Seattle’s Safeco Field has a low wall down the left-field line. When the Royals were in St. Louis, I asked Alex Gordon if a similar wall in Busch Stadium bothered him. After all, in Kauffman Stadium, Alex can go into foul territory without fear that he’s going to hit a wall and flip into the stands. Kauffman’s walls are high enough that accidentally falling into the crowd is not an issue.
Contrary to what you might think — or at least to what I thought — Alex wants to make a catch while falling into the stands. Gordon thought that the Derek Jeter grab that had the Yankee shortstop landing face-first in the seats was really cool, and Alex is willing to pay the same price— as long as it’s nothing worse than a bloody nose — to make a similar catch.
That’s OK, I guess. My personal dream come true involves the Nobel Prize and two porn stars, but to each their own.
A reminder
Someone sent this to me in an email Friday morning, and I thought it was worth sharing.
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” – Plato
(Great quote, but how did Plato know about the Internet?)
Guthrie
Perez
Coleman
Matthew Tiemeyer
9 months, 3 weeks agoStory isn’t up yet here, but my comment pertains to the reality of a complete offensive vacuum recently that has only been overshadowed by the horrific pitching.
Isn’t it time to return Giavotella to the big club? I’d be more confident about promoting him at this moment than Wil Meyers, whom I look forward to seeing in K.C. Getz has been fine, but I don’t see him being around on a playoff-caliber club - especially given how far away we seem at the moment.
Aaron Cooper
9 months, 3 weeks agoNot one mention of Dayton Moore when talking about why the Royals aren’t in last place? Glass and Moore are killing baseball in Kansas City…yet the first excuse coming from the KC media is injuries. How sad.
Dayton Moore is clearly in over his head as GM. His “it takes ten years to be competitive” crap is exactly that. Crap. The Rays, A’s, Indians, Pirates, and every other team in the league don’t have any problem putting together competitive seasons in recent years…only the Royals are losers literally every single year.
…but yeah, it’s all injuries. Nothing to do with the unbelievably horrible players Dayton keeps bringing in and sticking with for far too long.
Aaron Cooper
9 months, 3 weeks ago*are in last place?
Steve Alleman
9 months, 3 weeks agoI turned it off during the second inning blowout, as Rex Hudler went into one of his usual pointless ‘upbeat’ rambles. I can’t take it anymore. I’m done. Call me when the Hudler experiment is over. Even when the team is sucking, I can watch as long as Monty is in the booth. But this is it for me. Losing every night AND Hudler’s blather is too much. I’m out.
David Shaw
9 months, 3 weeks agoIt is way past the point where we shoud be looking to next year. Gio, Myers, and Ordirizzi need to be up and playing. They need to be ready from the jump next year and each one would be a step up from the players they are replacing. If you cant trade the guys in front of them, release them and eat the contract, or bench them. Those are sunk costs. Time to move forward once and for all.
Clark Hart
9 months, 3 weeks agoA partial correction, Aaron. Agreed, the Pirates are finally having a good year this season, but this is the first time in 20 years.The Pirates have been unable to produce a winning season since 1992, accumulating a 19-year losing streak – the longest in any of the four major professional North American sports leagues. When Dayton Moore took over the Royals, they were the A.L. version of the Pirates. Not only a bad major league club, but a minor league system short on talent. Of course it is going to take years to come back from that. As for this year, yes it’s been disappointing. But I doubt any team could withstand all the above-noted injuries.
Lee Judge
9 months, 3 weeks agoAaron: Do the unbelievably horrible players include Escobar, Perez, Moustakas, Cain, Crow, Collins, Mijares, Holland, Broxton and (despite his recent troubles) Hosmer?
The Royals are deservedly in last place and have played very poorly since the All-Star break. Nobody I know is denying that and if they did deny it, that would be unrealistic.
But denying that there’s been progress under Dayton Moore isn’t very realistic either. Since his arrival the organization has filled positions that had gone unfilled, increased its offers to drafted players and put togethe an outstanding minor-league system.
Those players are now arriving at the major league level and finding out (sometimes the hard way) what it takes to compete in the big leagues.
Simplistic black and white conclusions don’t do much to help fans understand what is happening. It’s never all good or all bad.
I believe the team is making progress under Moore, but clearly the starting pitching is lagging behind the position players and things won’t get a lot better until that problem is addressed.
Lee Judge
9 months, 3 weeks agoWhen Eric Hosmer was brought up last season, he was hitting well over .400 in Omaha. Numbers like that say the player has learned all he can at that level and is ready to move up.
The consensus opinion among the people I’ve talked to out at the park is that Hosmer needs to be here to fix his problems. Triple A pitching won’t challenge him in the same way.
On the other hand, all the minor-league players being talked about have shown some deficiency in their game—at the Triple A level. Those problems won’t get any easier to deal with in the big leagues.
Right now the Royals don’t appear to be going anywhere and, unless someone gets hurt or traded, there is no need to rush a player who may not be ready.
Jim Fetterolf
9 months, 3 weeks agoFor those who might wonder why the Pirates or Rays or Indians have become contenders, this is what Dayton Moore took over:
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/rankings/organization-talent-rankings/2006/26854.html
And that with little useful talent in the majors and no presence at the international level. Those who mention “other teams” haven’t done their homework. An empty farm system takes about six years to refill, then a few more years for the young studs to get consistently productive, as we are seeing now, tons of talent not yet producing every night, and that’s if the two top pitchers and one of the top prospects don’t need surgery.
Sam Miles
9 months, 3 weeks agoI’m still mostly on the fence on Dayton Moore and his tenure, but I don’t think we need to list taking the team from insulting-offers-to-draft-picks-and-filling-empty-positions as credits to the guy. Allard Baird would have done the same were he allowed.
The Royals have had injuries, yes, but so does every other team.
The fact of the matter is that the Royals were bad when Moore took over, and they’ve made no tangible progress in the only thing that matters: winning.
If that doesn’t change soon, we’ll start running out of excuses.
Lee Judge
9 months, 3 weeks agoSam: Dayton Moore was considered a hot GM prospect in Atlanta. Nobody has said this to me, but I’d be surprised if a hot GM prospect would come here without some assurance that he’d get the support necessary to improve the system.
So the end of some of the cheapskate behavior that was burying the team may very well have been tied to Moore.
You’re correct when you say all teams have to deal with injuries, but few teams that have to deal with injuries to two starting pitchers, their catcher, centerfielder and closer do well.
There are 13 teams with losing records right now. I doubt that all 13 GMs and managers of those teams deserve to be fired.
So the important question—at least to me—is whether those GMs and managers are part of the problem or part of the solution.
Jim Fetterolf
9 months, 3 weeks agoThe Royals were historically bad when Moore took over. I’ve pointed out that I thought their system was weaker than an expansion team at the time. They had nearly no minor league talent and not enough major-league to trade for prospects. It all had to be done with the draft and the brilliant Greinke trade, which produced as many starters on the current team as the minor-league system that Moore took over.
That’s not to claim that GMDM is a great GM, but comparing him to others without setting a baseline of what each started with is lazy. Some have even tried to compare KC’s turnaround time with the late ‘80s Yankees, kind of ignoring a small thing called money.
Aaron Cooper
9 months, 3 weeks agoThe same old tired excuses. The point of a GM is to win at the major league level. So far, DM has made almost no progress in that regard. EVERY TEAM has good young players. That’s the point you guys seem to not understand. Great, DM has brought in some young talent into our system. Go look at all the other organizations and you’ll see that they also have good young players at the major league level and in the minors.
The difference is, the better GMs are able to supplement their young core with decent/good players, while DM is so delusional that he thinks Francouer, Yuni, Getz, Dyson, etc. are actually good players.
Make all the excuses you want…they are the same excuses Royal fans have been hearing for 20 years now. Baseball in KC is dying and the Glass family and Moore are responsible.
Curtis Ruder
9 months, 3 weeks agoI don’t think all 13 of those GMs deserve to be fired. At the same time, I don’t think any of the other 12 have had six losing records on the trot either.
There is no question that there is more talent in the organization than there was six seasons ago. There has been some progress made.
But when does the general manager become accountable for the wins and losses at the major league level? Every general manager has trades that don’t work out. Every general manager makes a free agent signing that doesn’t work. I get that. We have traded for starting pitching repeatedly, and we have received Davies, O’Sullivan, Mazzaro, and Guthrie. Our free agent signings have included Bloomquist, Guillen, Betancourt twice, and Francouer. The first two draft picks Moore made look good in Moose and Hosmer - though Hosmer has taken a major step backwards and could be a stone cold bust - but Colon is languishing without a position, and Starling had to spend half a season in extended spring, so even his very early draft picks now have to be considered average at best for those positions.
And in six years, the organization has not developed a single average major league starting pitcher. Not one.
The one thing that Moore has done is when presented with a young and talented player, he has been able to negotiate some contract extensions. I think he did Soria and Butler’s contracts, and know that he did Greinke’s, Gordon’s, Escobar’s and Perez’s. Kudos to that.
But when I look out at the next 2-3 years, do I think Moore is the guy who will be able to supplement home grown talent with savvy free agents? I don’t. Do I think we will have a competitive rotation in 2014 with Moore at the helm? I don’t.
Maybe building a winning baseball team in Kansas City under the current ownership is impossible. It certainly seems beyond the ability of Dayton Moore.
Aaron Cooper
9 months, 3 weeks agoAlso, Lee, you say that 13 teams have losing records right now, yet their GMs don’t deserve to get fired…as if they are equivalent to DM?
Here are those teams (as of 07/28/12)
Boston: 3 playoff appearances, 1 WS title since 2007 Minnesota: 2 playoff appearances since 2009; 6 since 2002 Seattle: 2 winning seasons since 2007, 0 playoff appearances New York Mets: 2 winning seasons since 2007, playoffs in ‘06 Miami: 3 winning seasons since 2008; 2 WS titles since ‘97 Philadelphia: 5 straight playoff appearances before this season, including 1 WS title and another WS appearance Milwaukee: 2 playoff appearances since 2008 Chicago Cubs: 3 winning seasons, 2 playoff appearances since 2007 Houston: 1 winning seasons since 2007 San Diego: 2 winning seasons since 2007 Colorado: 3 winning seasons, 2 playoff appearances, 1 WS appearance since 2007
Kansas City Royals: 0 playoff appearances; 1 winning season since 1994
Can you spot the difference? That’s right, it is KC. They have been awful since 1994 and the media has been giving us the same old excuses. Baseball is dead in Kansas City until Moore is gone and really, probably until Glass is no longer the owner. You can keep talking about how good Hosmer, Perez, Moose, Cain, Escobar and others look…that’s great, I agree I do like those players, but EVERY SINGLE TEAM IN THE LEAUGE has good young players that they like and who “look promising.” The difference is that the Royals ONLY have those good young players and have a GM who can’t evaluate major league talent…and the result is yet another 70ish win season (maybe)
Aaron Cooper
9 months, 3 weeks agoRoyals were worse than an expansion franchise when Moore took over?? That is an absolute joke.
Moore inherited a Cy Young winning pitcher and the two current best hitters on the team (Gordon and Butler). Sure, he had to rebuild, but you are far overstating the lack of talent he had.
Also, the Marlins won the World Series in their fifth year of existence. The Rockies went to the playoffs in their third year of existence. The Diamondbacks won a WS in their 4th year of existence AND had two other playoff appearances in their first five years of existence.
The Rays had a bad first decade of existence…but now they are on their way to their 5th straight winning season in a TOUGHER division against WEALTHIER opponents with LESS resources than Dayton Moore/Glass have.
So……quit the excuses. Dayton is clearly a bad GM. Not even remotely debatable. The sooner we all realize it and get him out of here, the sooner we can regain even the slightest bit of hope.