King-Sized Letdown as Royals Blasted by A's in Long-Awaited Luke Hochevar Debut

Lincecum now?

Final Score
Oakland 25
KC
4

(Travis) proved how little RF range matters.

the end of the season looks MUCH closer than it did a week ago.

What a shitfest. Staying up for the postgame on the radio, but…ugh.Worst game of the year, past or future.

FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL.. you really let me, the royals, the fans, and my fantasy team down… Go eat some FAIL with a side a FAIL with some FAIL to drink..

Coco Crisp

Some dude won over $3 grand in the Sonic Slam inning

….that’s all.

things aren’t so bad

thats all that matters

is that the Royals can only get their hatred up for one west coast rival

I assume this means we should be picking dates and wagering?

on number of days until the national press begins to say “I told you they weren’t for real?”

Or were did they all jump onto the “this year’s Ray’s” bandwagon too soon and are now stuck on it?

The season came to an effective close the next day after the no-hitter and the hideous losing streak, but the point is, we were right at .500 at this point last year.

I still honestly believe this team is genetically flawed. We are very very fortunate the AL Central looks putrid this year and nobody is running away with it like the Angels did with the AL West last year.

But we have some big, big problems. Thing is, I think these problems might be fixable for Dayton. And we still have the best pitcher in baseball, so there is that.

and it was just as ugly as it sounded. The left field bleacher creatures were relentless with DeJesus and Crisp, especially after his dropped ball in center.

is a Yankee…

is a White Sock at the moment.

Life as a Royal fan isn’t all that bad.

Is your offense struggling? Need a boost? We’ve got the cure all for your woes.

make his debut in Oakland last year? Didn’t he get shelled last year as well? Maybe its the park…

was infield defense an issue? or did Hoch give up too many doubles that the infield D was irrelevant?

i just ask because in one of the highlights i saw, it looked like a very field-able ball went through the left side of the infield in the 2nd and let in a couple runs.

This was the first game of the season that the SP left a big hole to climb out of, which finally exposed the offensive woes of late. And it was offensive.

This losing streak will end very soon (I hope to night) because this is the first time all year that the Royals are finding different ways to lose, than different ways to win. The latter had been the going trend up until this first loosing streak.

Though Hochs’ first start is something to forget, I thought he put himself in most of those positions, not going for strikes early. Then, when tossing his close out stuff too early, and leaving them up, the A’s hit ‘em like BP. For his sake I would like Hoch to stay up a bit, perhaps switch with Thindy (or Cindy) in the rotation and give him a couple innings here and there to get him up to full speed. Obviously what the scouts saw in AAA was that even though Banny had a higher ERA and not as many wins, he had stuff that the Majors’ hitters wouldn’t do well with, while Hoch (god bless him) was not quite as edgy.

Here’s to the hope that the loosing streak ends tonight!!!

sometimes players just aren’t quite ready, and once again, the organization proves that they know more than us.

It’s not really a big deal. Every team* will have games where they give up 10+ runs. This, as everyone probably knows, was our 1st of the year.

*OK – so here is the bad news. There’s only one MLB team that hasn’t given up 10+ runs in a game yet this year – our current opponent, the Oakland A’s. They’ve only given up 9 runs once (and that was a 14 inning game). So while we are lamenting our lack of offense, we should be giving a little bit of credit to the A’s pitching.

On the other hand, last night was the first time the A’s have scored 10+ runs in a game this year. Perhaps they were just due – every team* will have a breakout game where they score 10+ runs.

*Uhhh – except the Padres! Too bad we don’t play them this year.

So, yeah, this wasn’t what we were hoping for Hochevar. However, even good/experienced pitchers can have games like this. Beckett started a game this year that the Sox lost 13-0. The only 2 games that the Giants have given up 10+ runs were both started by Randy Johnson. While Hoch obviously doesn’t have the track record or experience of these guys, I’m not willing to call for him to get sent back down yet. Let’s see how he handles the adversity.

Meanwhile, after a 4 game losing streak, we’re still tied for 1st. We’ve all experienced much worse than this as Royals fans!

Unless we get back on track VERY soon the only intact Royals fan grabber will be Greinke. I’m a fair weather fan and will stick around even if this turns into a skid that sets the real tone for the rest of the season. I’ve missed the last few game threads to get some much needed sleep but I’ll be back soon. Until then I also will show the huge sorrow of Luke blowing it.