The Royals saw their first winning streak of the season come to an end on Monday. During said winning streak, the offense showed some signs of breaking out of a month-long malaise. It’s true. In that time, the Royals collected six hits in 26 plate appearances with runners in scoring position. That’s a .231 batting […]
Author: Craig Brown
The long goodbye
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not for this player. Not in this city. For this team. Yet here we are. Alex Gordon has become a fringe player for the Royals. He returned to the Royals lineup on Tuesday night, hitting seventh in the order. He struck out looking to close the second, ripped […]
RECAP: Homecoming
It was almost Turn Back the Clock night at The K on Tuesday. Almost. Lorenzo Cain returned to Kansas City, thanks to the interleague schedule that mandated a trip for the Brewers. He was greeted by his hermanito Salvador Perez during a pregame met with the local media. (More on Perez in a moment.) He was […]
Mashin’ Moose
This has become an annual exercise in this segment of bandwidth. For the third year running, it’s time to celebrate the hitting transformation of one Michael Christopher Moustakas. Let’s just get this out of the way: Moustakas is absolutely punishing the baseball. According to data from Statcast and Baseball Savant, Moustakas is barreling a pitch […]
For the Royals bullpen, sorry isn’t the hardest word
“That’s one thing I hate hearing is ‘sorry’ after a reliever has a tough go. Don’t apologize.” That’s Danny Duffy commenting on the Royals bullpen after yet another blown lead. This time, Duffy was the victim. He shoved in game two of the twin bill in Toronto. After a pair of rocky first innings when […]
The end of Danny Duffy as the Royals top starter
When Danny Duffy takes the mound on Wednesday against the Seattle Mariners, he will be looking for his mojo. It’s been a rough couple of weeks for the Royals’ number one. He sports a 7.45 ERA in 9.2 innings of work. His walks are up and strikeouts are down. Yes, you can call the Small Sample […]
Moving the bats out of cold storage
The streets are still teeming with the Small Sample Size Cops. In this kind of statistical police state, it’s dangerous to cite any kind of example from these first eight or so games, lest you be set upon by those who would throw scorn on your numbers. Yet it’s not too early to look for […]
Anatomy of a strikeout
The kid pitcher with exactly 101 major league innings on his resume. The slugging veteran who is a career .317/.395/.553 hitter with 463 home runs on his way to Cooperstown. A mismatch perhaps? Not when the kid comes armed with a wipeout slider. Jakob Junis found himself in a spot of trouble in the third […]
Getting down to business
Money comes in and money goes out. Baseball is a business and everyone involved is trying to figure out how to make a profit. This won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention, but the Royals payroll has decreased. It’s the first time since 2011 that number has seen a dip. That’s what […]
Building a better bullpen
It seems especially futile to project any kind of Opening Day bullpen, even at this point. Not so much because it doesn’t matter. More because it seems like this is the Royals version of a revolving door. The group they break camp with for the opener on Thursday will most assuredly look different by the […]