Joe Sheehan Enters Our Hell

Joe, trust me. You wouldn't last a day as a Royals fan.

Bad, Bad, Baseball

First inning, Royals come to bat down a run. Joey Gathright takes three pitches, two of them balls, then bunts his way on to first. David DeJesus comes to the plate and walks on seven pitches, taking five of them. Carmona has thrown 11 pitches, six of them balls. Mark Teahen comes up with two on and no one out. The first three pitches to him are balls. Carmona has now thrown 14 pitches, nine of them out of the strike zone, and is one pitch from walking the bases loaded. You have to give him a chance to do that, right?

Teahen doesn’t. He swings at the 3-0 and fouls it off. In fact, the Royals swing at Carmona’s next eight pitches, scoring one run on a groundball single inside the first-base line, but leaving a big inning just hanging there when Alex Gordon grounds into a double play on the first pitch he sees. Look at that sequence again: Carmona–who has walked 19 men in 23 innings when Teahen steps up–throws nine balls in his first 14 pitches, and the Royals swing at the next eight. That is unacceptably stupid baseball.

It gets better. The Indians get two runs in the top of the second, retaking a lead. In the bottom of the inning, Miguel Olivo takes a strike and then singles. Ross Gload comes up with one on and no one out, having watched the previous inning end in part because his teammates wouldn’t let Carmona hang himself…and he proceeds to make two outs on one pitch, grounding into an easy double play. Alberto Callaspo comes up, and walks on five pitches, the last four in a row. Tony Pena watches ball one go by, making five consecutive balls by Carmona, then hacks, hitting a Baltimore Chop single. Joey Gathright comes up and immediately swings, fouling to the catcher. Just like in the first inning, the Royals made stupid decisions to let a pitcher who was happily getting himself into trouble out of trouble with ease.

Through two innings, Carmona has thrown 33 pitches. He has fallen behind every single batter who saw more than two offerings. The Royals have swung at 15 of his pitches. They have four hits–all singles, three of the infield variety–six foul balls, one swing and miss, and six outs on four other balls in play. They’ve taken 18 pitches, 14 of which have been called balls. Any kind of nonridiculous approach at the plate would probably have led to multiple runs. Instead, thanks in part to Brett Tomko, the Royals are down 7-2 (through three innings) and thinking about Game Two.