Royals Fall to A's, Lose Fifth Straight

The Royals stake him to an enormous, gigantic, humongous 1 run lead and he can’t hold it.

It’s a long season. All teams have stretches like this. We have already ran off six in a row, now we have lost 5. We need David and/or Mike to come out of their slumps. I hope David gets moved down in the order tomorrow. With the way he is hitting he needs to be moved from the 2 hole. Hopefully we can get this straightened out tomorrow night at home. Pitching matchups look to favor us. Also in our favor Adam Jones left Baltimores game tonight with an injured hamstring. So people, take a deep breath and relax. Go Royals.

A few of my own thoughts…

Bannister did look very good, much more like the Banny of 2007, not the Banny of 2008. He started getting hit hard towards the end of the 5th (and in the 6th, obviously), but he was otherwise pitching very, very well.

Crisp covers a lot of ground in the OF. A lot. Totally misplayed the Giambi double, though.

Butler looked competent at 1b. He has come a long, long ways and should be getting the lion’s share of the starts at 1b, while Jacobs mostly DH’s.

Aviles, Olivo, and Buck all looked completely lost at the plate. (and yeah, on a similar and obvious note, this is one cold, cold lineup).

DDJ’s arm isn’t great, but he probably wouldn’t have cost the Royals the second run in the 6th inning. Just because Willie Hustle can play OF doesn’t mean he should.

The Teahen error was just embarrassing. It was a totally doable play. I’ll be glad to get Gordon back at 3b.

Oakland A’s fans are really, really annoying.

Stadium hot dogs really do taste better when they only cost a dollar.

• Nothing to argue there
• Bannister was solid, yes. Especially for the “#5 Starter”. And I disagree about Spork’s throw. If you watch it again he actually setup well for the throw and made a nice, hard, low throw to the plate that got cut off…rightfully so. IMO DeJesus would not have thrown Suzuki out at the plate on that play either.
• Teahen should have made both plays that he botched at 3rd. I’m not saying it cost them the game but I’ve seen him make those plays before and I expect it out of a MLB player, even if they have been run all over the field recently.
• I will have to see this one again to understand the back-hand comment. Did he turn his wrist over and attempt to back-hand it like an infielder on a groundball? If so, then yes it was a bad timing mistake.
• In all fairness, your sequence of events included two errors (imo the 2nd one was an error). So Wright gets a little slack from me as he induced some ground balls that should have been outs.
• There’s no excuse for Hillman’s use of the bullpen in Game 1 of the series. Ponson/HoRam should have eaten most of the remaining innings in that game.
• No real substance to the Jacobs comment but it does bring some humor to the post, which I am sure was the intention.
• Started the road trip with a 7-5 record on the road, finished it with a 7-10 record. If they can play close to .500 ball on the road I think they will remain in contention in the AL Central this year.

Thanks for the post-game write ups Will, I think they are a great alternative to everyone posting on the game thread after the game and the next day.

Don’t try to bullshit yourself with this awesome start to the season. The Royals don’t have that George Brett we don’t have Beltran, or Dye. Our best hitters are Guillen and Jacobs and now Butler is coming into form. Guillen would be a great #6 in the lineup. He’s not who you build your offense around. We need a legit #3 hitter. Teahen is great but you want a guy like that batting 7th and kicking some ass. Guillen is too much of a liability in RF because some of those balls we hit that Oaklands guy caught would have been doubles if the teams were reversed. Heres what needs to happen: trade Teahen OR trade Gordon. We need to find a legit SS (good luck). Guillen needs to DH only at this point whether he likes it or not. And that’s another problem. Log jam at DH/1B in Butler, Jacobs, and Guillen. Oh, so you’re telling me we don’t have a choice but to play Jose at RF. OK then – we just don’t have what it takes this year to win a playoff game then. We are so shitty and scoring runs and moving runners (small ball) it’s not even funny. I cringe every time the bases are loaded. It comes down to the hitting talent. The Royals are missing it this year. A lot of hype, potential, and promise. But no cigar. Aviles struggles are killing us. Olivo’s plate appearances are pathetic yet he doesn’t change a thing and trying to take huge rips (many times first pitch) and doesn’t even try to hit halls where they are pitched. Olivo is great a throwing out runners. His plate discipline is deplorable. We have Callaspo at 2nd. But we also have Teahen when Gordon is heathy and Bloomquist. We have talent which is all log jammed at one position or another. Meanwhile SS and RF are problems. Even DeJesus at LF isn’t hitting the ball worth a shit right now. I expect he’ll come around but he too is trying to pull to many pitches and needs to try and go the opposite way often when the ball is pitched there! Buck still sucks at the plate when all is said and done and we pretty much should just stick with Olivo primarily because people steal on us all over the place when Buck is back there. Our pitching is fine all in all. Our pitching is playoff caliber. Our hitting, while there is talent, just is missing that Superstar. Greinke, Soria, Cruz all part of a great pitching staff. At the plate? If all you can say is Guillen (great power but we need those .300+ hitters that you just expect to get his like Sweeney is his hey day) and Jacobs then we’ve got problems. I would say there is one player – not a Superstar but a Star that you love to have and seems to mostly always do the right things and that’s COCO CRISP. Hats off to him. We just are missing another Superstar bat.