Game 40 - 5/15/2007

Royals 4, A's 5

Sorry for the delays in keeping this thing updated. Work has become very busy and the Royals, frankly, haven't been very interesting.

We are now 40 games into the season. Earier in the year, Dayton Moore had said that he wouldn't make any judgements on any players until 40 games. A couple of things are pretty clear to me at this point:

Alex Gordon needs to go to Omaha. He still looks lost at the plate. Give him some time at AAA to get his stroke back, then call him back up. This is probably doing more damage than good right now.

Buddy Bell needs to be fired. I'm so tired of these inexplicible moves. Billy Butler was brought up to "play every day," and "spark our offense." He's been on the bench for a week. I'm sick of seeing players play out of position. We have catchers playing third, third basemen playing short and first, and infielders playing outfield. This all seemed to start back in the Tony Pena days when Desi Relaford was playing left field. I'm sure it's not helping the young players like Butler and Gordon to have to deal with changing positions while they try to learn to hit in the big leagues.

To make things worse, Bell does not know how to use his players. In last night's game - a close game in the late innings that the Royals tied in the ninth, we somehow ended up with our best hitter (John Buck) on the bench. Of all the players to sub out, he picks Buck? Buck is the only hitter in the lineup who is hitting the ball hard. And with two right handed hitters on the bench, Bell left the struggling, left handed hitter Gordon in the game to face a nasty lefty sidearm pitcher. It makes no sense at all.

It is frustrating to see the Royals players stuggle. Let's face it, we have some talent, but not as much talent as most other teams. But the stupid managerial moves are turning an 85 loss team into a 100 loss team. Bell's gotta go.

The Bell Curve
Actual Record 13-27
Expected Record 14-26
Runs Scored 153
Runs Allowed 207
Projected Record 53-109
Pythagorean Record 58-104
Pythagorean Winning% 0.353

Let's go get 'em