Random Thoughts from Tonight's Game

Pregame: Why aren't more games on HD? Every MLB game should be available in HD. The Park Hill Freshman baseball team lost to Lee's Summit West today. The score was 23-2. Let's hope the Royals have a better day.

Middle 2nd: Nice to see the Royals get something done with 2 outs. But, Aviles is completely worthless right now. Really? The first pop foul went too far into the seats, so you give the catcher another chance? Two words for you Mike: I29 North.

Top 3rd: Banny looks good tonight. Remember last night's game? Where were we after 2 innings? Tonight's much better! Banny's weird cutter is working for him so far. That change-up, well placed, is effective as well. Lots of ground balls so far.

Top 4th: Banny gives up a leadoff hit, but limits the damage. Too bad Coco's arm is so weak. Runners are always advancing on him.

Bottom 4th: Man, Olivo's got a lot of kids.

Bottom 5th: Outman. What a great pitcher's name. What are some others? Slowey, Balfour... Amazing! Aviles walks! Alas, they couldn't quite put together another 2 out rally. Still gotta love the way Banny's pitching tonight.

Top 6th: That commercial for t-shirt Tuesday makes that shirt look terrible. It looks like some kind of strange, Euro-shirt with George Brett on the front. I think it's because we aren't seeing the real shirt, but rather some strange computer generated twiggy model of the t-shirt. Banny makes a mistake on Kennedy, but gets Travis Buck out on a come-backer. Banny's looking great!

Bottom 6th: Oooh... Banny left a pitch up and Suzuki smoked it to left. A's have runners on 1st and 2nd with one out. Let's see how Banny responds...

And, he responds by leaving another pitch up to Giambi. He drives it to center where Coco didn't quite make the catch. Tie game. Dammit, we need some offense!

Is Banny tiring?

4 pitch walk to Holiday. Is anybody warming?

Banny gives up the lead. We need an out and some offense.

Could things get any worse for the Royals right now? Is Banny hurt?

Middle 6th: Why does Time Warner Cable always interupt commercials halfway through to go to their own commercials, which happen to be twice as loud?

Top 7th: Leadoff walk. We'll take it!

It's getting late. I'm heading to bed to watch the rest. Go Royals!

Getting Better...

That Buck grand slam sure helped.

Yeah, it sucks that Farnsworth struggled again yesterday, and Teahen got burned for his aggressiveness. But even after being down, the Royals showed some fight and refused to go quietly.

We're only 9 games in, but things are looking good so far. The Royals should do well in Texas, with their 1-2-3 pitchers going. Let's keep first place in sight!

Good News, Bad News

First the good news...

The Royals are tied for first place in the Central with a winning record of 4-3. Meche, Grienke and Davies have all shown that they are capable of magnificent pitching. Soria is 4-4 in save opportunities. And I love that Grienke was able to pitch out of trouble last night without giving any runs.

The bad news...

The Royals have scored only 18 runs, and have given up 21. That translates to only 69 wins. They've scored more in the last 2 games, but they definitely need to start scoring more runs if they want to hang in the group of contenders in this division.

Really? Farnsworth?

What the hell did we sign Cruz for?

In 2008, Cruz's ERA was 2.61 while Farnsworth's was 4.48. Cruz gave up 5 HRs, Farnsworth 15. Lefties hit .159 against Cruz, and they hit .275 against Farnsworth.

Eight inning, 1 run lead, opening day on the road. Why ruin Meche's brilliant pitching with such an idiotic move? I've never played baseball, let alone managed a baseball team, but seriously, this one was so obvious. Hillman's not really this stupid is he?

Lord I hope not.

I'm Baaaacccckkkk......

This blog was started in 2006 as a daily update to track the Royals in hopes that they would *not* lose 100 games.

Buddy Bell was the manager, and Scott Elarton was the Opening Day starter. We've come a long way since 2006.

Over the last few years, posts here became fewer and farther between. That will probably continue to be true, but we do hope to have some activity here this season.

We most likely will not do daily stat tracker update, but we will try to post occasionally about the 2009 Royals.

And so, it begins. Or, not. The genius scheduling software put the Royals in Chicago in early April, and it snowed, and the game was postponed. Hopefully, we will have a game to analyze tomorrow.

In the meantime, I'd like to leave you with this:

http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/al-predictions-for-2009/?em