Anyway, small sample size warnings apply to everything here. There is much more to be pleased with than concerned, but in the interest of math, fair time, and leaning on a tired cliche, we offer three positives and three negatives … you know, three up and three down.
Let’s do the bad stuff first.

Mike Moustakas is hitting .158 with two extra-base hits in 57 at bats. Among 191 AL hitters with enough plate appearances to qualify, Moose is 187th with a .419 OPS. His walk rate is up and his strikeout rate down, but he sure doesn’t look comfortable at the plate. Lots of infield popups (nearly one-third of his at bats, actually), most of them to the left side. I’ve always thought Moose’s swing and plate approach will make for streaks both good and bad, and that his attitude and disposition are well-equipped to handle the wild ride. Yost has moved him down in the order, and it’ll be interesting to see what the Royals do if the struggles continue. This year isn’t about development.


Eric Hosmer has only one extra-base hit with 11 strikeouts, and hasn’t given anyone reason to forget about last year’s struggles. There’s too much talent there and the season still too young to freak out, but it’d be nice if the Royals didn’t have to keep reassuring themselves. Hosmer is only 23 years old, but 1,213 plate appearances mean we should be seeing the talent come through. Yost has said he wants to stick with his latest lineup more consistently, and Hosmer hitting cleanup is the key to making it work.


Sal Perez is on pace to play in all 162 games. Yeah, OK, fine. The Royals have had enough offdays that that’s a bit misleading. Five other catchers have played in 17 games. Two have played in 18. But Yost has said he could see playing Perez 150 games, and so far that looks like the low end. I’m all for Perez being in the game. He is the Royals’ most valuable asset, the pitchers love him, it’s all good. But he’s also 22 years old, under club control through 2019, and coming off a major knee injury that wiped out half of last season. George Kottaras is one of the better backup catchers in baseball. Some discretion here might be prudent.


And now, the up:

James Shields and Ervin Santana are terrific. Really, you could include the entire rotation here, but the front two guys have been especially good: eight combined starts, and none worse than six innings and four runs. Santana’s last three starts have gone for 23 innings, four earned runs, four walks and eighteen strikeouts. If the pitching holds up anything close to this, the Royals are going to be in this thing when the weather begins to cool off.


Alcides Escobar is hitting with some power. He has four doubles and two homers in 68 at bats. He hit .293 last year, and there’s a chance that will end up as his career high. But I know a few scouts who think he’ll continue to develop power, and be a guy who can hit .275 or so with 15 homers and 35-40 doubles. Occasional lapses in attention at shortstop aside — if you notice, they never seem to happen in key moments — that’s perennial All-Star production.


Lorenzo Cain is hitting absolutely everything: .368 with a .509 slugging percentage. Cain is a fascinating player for the Royals, because the talent is obvious, he plays a premium defensive position well (when Alex Gordon’s not getting in the way) and can be a productive hitter in the middle of the lineup. It’s just a matter of staying healthy. So far, so good.


Bonus positive No. 1: Gordon is hitting nearly as well as Cain, but by now is good enough that it doesn’t make this list.

Bonus positive No. 2: Billy Butler is struggling, by his and others’ descriptions, but still leads the team in RBIs, has a .375 on-base percentage, and a 119 OPS+.

Bonus positive No. 3: Luke Hochevar hasn’t given up a run in his last three outings, and has a 1.69 ERA in his new career as a reliever. There is some luck involved here, with lineouts and such, but maybe this new role can work.


http://mellinger.kansascity.com/entr...-place-royals/

ESPN has to get viewers and pumping up Red Sox fans does that. The MidWest people are slowly not giving a **** what ESPN has to say.

They have scored four runs in their last 43 innings.

Pretty sure he knows that.

Your still talking as if we aren't trying to win this year. We won't win with his replacements, and we can't give him a couple months in Omaha. He's got to figure it out, and he's got to do it right now.

Be that as it may, it's going to be considerable higher than +130. This has all the makings of one of the biggest spreads of the season.

Nope, i was wrong. But still, anything is possible, but it will be tough.

+160 is the kind of spread that Miami and Houston get. I think we'll settle in around +130, at least for tomorrow.

I can see Wednesday getting an ugly spread.

Detroit has slipped a little on the AL Central prop bet.

Detroit -300
Kansas City +400
Cleveland +1000
Chicago +1200
Minnesota +2000

implied odds (when you force them to add up to 100%)

DET 64.3%
KC 17.2%
CLE 7.8%
CWS 6.6%
MIN 4.1%

We'd probably be wise to temper our pessimism just a bit.

Hey now, lighten up on Ross Gload!

Ned tried to blame it on Seitzer as evident by his dismissal during the offseason. I think it goes up one more level as to the problem. Ned pissed me the **** off yesterday when after several bad calls, especially the Cain steal of second that was missed, Ned did nothing to protect his player. Ned could be a good manager, but managing a young team takes a different set of skills that I don't think Ned possesses. My guess as to why Francoeur is still on the team. He does what Ned doesn't want to or can't do.

Yost's biggest asset is his handling of young players. That's the only thing he was credited for in Milwaukee, which brought up a ton of young players at the same time under Yost.

I think with young players, you have to walk that line carefully. You want to be professionals and be able to accept bad calls as part of the game. But you also have to show them you have their backs.

Seitzer got fired because Hosmer and Moose weren't hitting. imo.


Well Seitzer is gone and they still aren't hitting so Seitzer got the shaft

in other news, we were like 1 pitch away from a 3 game series sweep of the Boston redsox.

so that's a happy thought

Don't forget "team leader" and "Great teammate" Jeff Francoeur complaining about him, too. And how Seitzer was holding him back.

That, and all the doubles he hit with Butler on 1B that Butler didn't score on...

A winning April? Can it be possible? Dare we dream?

Are you calling OPS statistics reeruned? What's reeruned about them? I don't see any reason to hate numbers. Numbers don't have biases. They don't have feelings. Do not hate them.

I really don't follow your logic here. If it's imperative to win now, then you sacrifice development. Right? Isn't that how the game (hell, every game) has been played forever? Now if you want them to develop into everyday regulars then of course you play them through this.


Greinke said he wanted out of KC because we couldn't win so early in Moose & Hosmer's tenure. Said he, Gordon, and Butler all took time. Zack is stating a longstanding belief but I'm surprised you disagree with him.

Pitt Gorilla is wrong. You don't have a clue how ****ing stupid you are.

Again, you're missing my point. He and Hos need to go down for a while to get back on track. The alternative is burying them here. It's possible they'll both snap out of it but that's also possible if you send them down. Teams do it all the time with 95% of players having to spend some time down there again, it's not exactly a controversial theory here.

I can explain OPS to you if you need help.

For fun, I looked up Dougie Mientkeiwicz career numbers. Same OPS as Gload and Hosmer. Then I threw up in my mouth a little. Oh well maybe Eric will develop that grit that made those players such stars.

Hey guys I think our infield defense would be better with Johnson at third and Tejada at first!

This is nausea inducing.

What's worse: his slug% was a tidy .465 his first year at age 21. But in his last 650 PA has been........351. Yeah: .351 slug % for Hosmer over that long time frame. For an AL corner IF.


He's now simply a slap-hitting, ground ball dribbling, punch & judy hitter.

Napoli still on fire...2 for 2 tonight with a granny and 5 RBI's

So be it. If they are damaged or ruined here, then they get buried.

On another note, I will say this about you: although you're catching a lot of grief and I disagree with what you are saying, you do stick to your point and you argue civilly for the most part.

It's possible they've done all they can at AAA. At their young age though and given such short stints there I would lean against that

The one issue I have with moving anyone around is how much of a defensive loss it is. It seems like when anyone of our everyday starters sits the replacement is responsible for at least 1 bad play, error and/or run for the games they start. If this team loses any position player for an extended period of time, I would really worry about the defense. Hosmer and Moose may not be able to hit but they are light-years above their replacements defensively. I'd say a .180 Moose is still better than a .250 Tejada.

To be fair, Moose has been incredibly awful, to the point where his defense doesn't matter. I simply believe its a 3-week anomaly, and he couldn't possibly be this bad. Whether he rebounds to being "not awful, but still kinda crappy", or "OK", or "finally, now thats what I'm talkin' about" remains to be seen.

In only 3 weeks, Moose already has -0.6 WAR. That is breathtakingly bad in that short a time, at least Hosmer has been about replacement level.

I'm planning on starting the game thread tomorrow, just to test my "mojo". If I can follow a double header sweep with beating Scherzer, then I'll take on the tall task of Wednesday. If we lose tomorrow, then I'll leave the heavy burden of Mendoza vs Verlander to some other brave, foolhardy soul.

When Hos came up, the one thing I loved about him is he never got cheated on his swing, and was consistently hitting the ball Hard, maybe for an out, but he was blasting the ball! What happened to that guy? Did pitchers finally figure him out, and he cannot adjust, or is it truly bad coaching?

all 3

heads-up to people who might buy tickets, don't just automatically go to stubhub. Yes, most of the time thats what I do and more than likely it'll be cheaper/better for good seats.

I just now bought tickets at a high-demand game. The stubhub prices seemed high so I checked with the Royals and found out that the stubhub sellers were being a little too greedy, at least for that game.

I'll eat it if that happens but I'm predicting W - L - W this series.

if anyone goes to that day game on thursday in may stub hub has great deals.

I have no problem starting "The true mexicutioner" v Verlander game thread. My guy got this. 7IP 5 hits 2ER Im guaranteeing!

That would not be a not so bad way to end an already pretty good road trip.

Yuniesky Betancourt hit another bomb today.

His slugging % is higher than Moose's and Hosmer's combined.

His defense is SO bad though.

he's playing 1st now lol

maybe we should have had him there all along!!!

I just realized that I had my dates wrong. I was referring to the Verlander/Mendoza matchup.

yep, that'll be +150 or +160.

If we win on Wednesday, that'd be crazymaking.

Keep the mojo going!

http://m.bleacherreport.com/articles...-in-al-central

http://www.nj.com/phillies/index.ssf..._shape_ka.html

http://m.bleacherreport.com/articles...s-to-each-game

Tonight's Forecast for Detroit:
Scattered showers and thunderstorms, then occasional showers and possibly a thunderstorm after 7pm. Low around 38. South southeast wind 7 to 17 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.

I haven't watched enough baseball to know this. How easily to MLB games get postponed due to weather?

Fairly easily if the field becomes saturated to where game play is effected or safety is an issue. Heavy snow can also be an issue.

Thursday Forecast for Detroit:
Rain likely, possibly mixed with snow showers, mainly before 2pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 46. Breezy, with a south wind 10 to 18 mph becoming west in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 29 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.

:facepalm:

Northern teams need domes to play in for April.

yay, more days off!!!

Posted this in the game thread. It belongs here, too...

Peter Gammons ‏@pgammo 4h
Red Sox players' description of Salvador Perez:"The Beast." Majority opinion:no AL catcher with better hands or arm. Star.

If there's a chance to go 5 innings, they will push it, but if there's cloud to ground lightning, they are going to shut it down. Also if its a torrential downpour.

When night games like this one get postponed, do they usually try and play them later that night, or just play them as a double header on the following days?

Since this is the first game in the series and we'll be back to Detroit several times, I don't think they'll go crazy with sticking around past 1am and trying to get it in. Once they have the rain delay, unless the radar shows it'll be very quick, I bet they'll postpone to a later date.

Thanks for the replies to my n00b questions. Hopefully it doesn't get rained out.

What are the chances Will Smith takes the 5th spot from Mendoza? Good era, good K/9. Thoughts?

Since he got sent back down to the minors, zero. At least this week.

I think Mendoza has proven plenty that he deserves to be our fifth starter. His good games are really good but his bad games are never really that terrible.

I figured as much. Sorry, I didn't specify a timeframe, but I was thinking along the lines of the next month.

I think Mendoza needs a few more starts before giving up on him.

If I'm Detroit I think I would push the DH to Aug. and hope the Royal's bullpen is more taxed than it is now (of course the Tiger's pen may be taxed then too). But IMO the Royals' bullpen is rested enough to withstand another DH this week if it had to whereas the Tigers pen went through a blowout loss and a 13 inning game this past weekend in Anaheim.

Take it with a grain of salt, but the Royals think they know what is wrong with Moose. He's drifting forward too early and too much when he steps into his swing, which results in weak popups.

He took extensive batting practice today to learn how to stay back.

Bring on another DH. We will take that too.

So, he's lunging at the ball, similar to what Hosmer was doing.

I'm home on Thursday...lets play two!

@goldbergkc 1m

#Royals announce Wade Davis will pitch tomorrow & James Shields will go Thursday. Luis Mendoza will be skipped in this series

ESPN Stats & Info ‏@ESPNStatsInfo 4m

The Kansas City Royals drafted both John Elway & Dan Marino in the 1979 MLB Draft. #ElwaytoMarino

I'm not sure I like this. At some point you have to give Mendoza some work.

Well, that explains things.

Yeah, but I'd rather see him out there against a struggling team like the Indians than the one team that we need to beat to win the division.

Moose's swing looks simple not the loopy shit Hosmer has.

The game on Thursday isn't televised?????

shit

something something "even the Royals know you need to draft a first round QB" joke something something

Looks like teh Royals r better at draftin QBs than th chefs!