I think what we saw from Ponson on Friday was the best we can expect. The Yanks hit him hard, just mostly at our guys. When they chose to catch them, we got outs. Some nights, those rockets are going to miss more gloves.

I believe Hoch will be up here as soon as the service time deadline passes. Ponson moves back a spot in the rotation and Hoch starts regularly in the 4th spot. Ho Ram goes into middle relief, where he was pretty effective last season.

who has never had a sustained opportunity? Yes, I know he pitched most of last year – as a rookie. Give the kid a chance to succeed or fail. I believe Hochevar is a key piece to Royals 09 season. He will give them a solid 4th starter for 3/4 of season (after May 1). If KC has 4 solid starters in rotation, their chance to win the AL Central go up even if offense is shaky.

but I would keep him generally available, especially for OF or SS help. But i truly believe that he was make over 20 starts and perform at above a level 4 starter this year.

we will almost assuredly be calling up Hochevar by May 1st. I don’t know if you guys saw his start the other day against the Yankees but he looked absolutely horrible. With the emergence of Jamie Wright being a solid long relief pitcher his chances of staying on the club in the bullpen are very low. He really has no value for us in either the 5th rotation spot or in the bullpen. He might get one or two more chances to start but if he gets shelled again we will have to change things up. Besides, Hochevar is already a better pitcher then him and should be at least our 5th starter right now, so we might as well see if Hochevar can turn into a solid middle of the rotation guy and once again trade Ramirez for a low level prospect while probably picking up most of his salary. Ramirez is absolutely worthless, and if it wasn’t for his stupid guaranteed contract he would have never made this club.

I guess what I was trying to say was that we need Hochevar this year. No way we trade him.

If Hochevar turns out to be a solid #3 starter, or even a decent #4 (which is close to the worst-case scenario), he’s a valuable part of this team for the next five years. Assuming Davies turns out to be pretty decent too, that’s four real starting pitchers. A lot of teams don’t have that.

Over here I only see a few highlights on Internet off ESPN, so I’m absolutely not the guy to opine on how a particular player is looking now, but Ponson and Ramirez have lousy records as starters. They are not good pitchers. They’re over-the-hill hacks. They’re only going to get worse. (Though Ramirez could be an effective reliever. Maybe.) I’d rather see young players with some kind of future starting for us. Like for example Soria, but let’s not get into that again.

I assume that Hochevar will be brought up as soon as it won’t affect his future contract status. Number five, in about a month, will probably be Banny unless he gets lit up at Omaha and shows that 2007 was a mirage. If that doesn’t work, Tejeda’s probably your next choice. After that, Jim Bouton’s probably looking for work and would likely pitch at least as well as Ponson.

Also, as long as TPJ is on the major-league squad as the late-inning defensive replacement, have him pitch a few innings too. He can pitch better than he can hit.