One of the things we learn repeatedly watching this team is that Trey Hillman is awful at handling pitchers. It's likely to be a problem that didn't just occur this year. Future installments of this series will go over the Torquemada-esque usage of starting pitchers on this team and we can look back at 2008.

Another thing we learn repeatedly watching this team is that the bullpen is awful. The bullpen ERA is 5.05, and that's counting Soria. But what about a more haunting possibility, that the bullpen, while craptacular, has been misused by Trey Hillman?

First, a primer on the chart that is under the fold. Only Royals with 10 appearances in relief were included.  RA is relief appearances. MI-RA is multiple inning relief appearances (keeping in mind that some of the MIRAs were 3 outs over 2 innings or attempting to pitch over 2 innings), BODwn is the number of games entered with the Royals down 4 or more. CGDwn is when the Royals were down by 1, 2 or 3. CGUp is when the Royals were up by 1, 2, or 3. BOUp is when the Royals were up by 4 or more. And there is a Misc column for the 3 saves Soria registered despite entering with a 4+ run lead. DTU are the percentages. The rest should be clear.

Now it's time for a reliever by reliever assessment.

We start with the Royals most prolific reliever of 2009, Jamey Wright. Before making history with the 2009 Royals, Jamey was the 51st starting pitcher on the memorable 2003 Kansas City Royals, and the Royals chose to let Eduardo Villacis start a game in 2004 instead of calling up Jamey from Omaha. Of the regular relievers, Jamey was the most called upon in a tie game. Only 1 of Jamey's 5 losses game when he entered in a tie game. Although another entry in a tie situation was the game vs the Angels in July when he entered, loaded the bases with 2 walks, and then Soria let the runs score.

Jamey Wright threw 49 pitches in 3 innings over 2 days vs. Toronto in late April. He got a day off. Although he did get 4 days off after 43 pitches vs the White Sox. He followed 24 pitches on June 18th with 55 pitches on June 19th after a gruesome Kyle Davies meltdown. He received one day off, then threw 25 pitches on June 21st. He threw 32 pitches on July 11th, followed by 26 on July 12th. He also threw both ends of a doubleheader because when you pay for one game and get two, you demand two times the Jamey Wright. Wright has been consistently regular in his usage, with between 9 1/3 to 15 innings per month, which suggests that he is either the toughest man living, due for Tommy John in the offseason, or proof that the "sinkerball pitchers work better when tired" saying is slightly true.

Next to the only reliever who you could depend upon. In the good ol' days of Baseball where you could only see one game a week on TV and park on some guy's lawn when going to the park, the best relief pitcher might be used whenever there was a tough relief spot. But nowadays, we let that reliever sit on his butt until the 8th and pitch the 9th if we're up by 3 or less. Although after multiple 8th inning failures, Trey Hillman told us he would not use Joakim Soria for more than 4 outs due to concerns over his arm, before using him multiple times for 6 outs. The quirk in Soria's usage is him never entering with the Royals down by 3 or less. But with our talented offense, we don't need our best reliever to keep us in games.

Joakim Soria started the year as an orthodox closer, then somewhere around late April, he was held back for a week. He returned to pitch multiple innings in extra-innings (19 pitches). Followed by another 19 pitch outing the next day for a save. After a few days on the downlow, Soria threw 29 pitches in an inning, went on the DL, and the Royals season went down the commode. When Joakim returned, the Royals deteriorated into a scene out of Mad Max where Mike Jacobs and Miguel Olivo were feuding over the usage of the go-cart and Jose Guillen declared himself Lord Humungous.

Ok, it didn't get that bad, but Soria was used a bit more carefully in June (although the lack of save opportunities kind of made that easy). Soria pitched in 3 games with the Royals down 7 or more in June. Soria's July started with 4 saves and a random appearance in mopup duty. Then he didn't show up for 10 days as the Royals pen repeatedly blew the game in the 8th inning. He made his return from the Fortress of Solitude to pitch in a game that the Royals were down by 8 (the Ponson/Chen doubleheader). Soria made his first 2-inning save on July 25th after assuring Trey that his arm was not in immiment danger of falling off. Soria has saved 6 games after entering in the 8th, with only his save vereus Texas and the last save vereus Minnesota coming with the Royals up 3 and Soria notching 6 outs. Soria's last appearance was his hardest, with 46 pitches. His save against Boston was the first time this year he came out to pitch on the day after throwing 20 or more pitches in his last appearance.

Maybe those of you who predicted that Roman Colon would register the third most relief innings in this season are going to Vegas this October. But Colon's usage is proof that if you stay healthy and the team is losing often enough, you will pitch. Roman Colon did mainly pitch in games that the Royals were losing, making his bad habit of strikeout celebrations a bit more annoying than usual. But Roman Colon is the pitcher who would not go away on this team, because of the Major League demand for 30 year old relievers with ERAs in the 5s.

Roman Colon's usage pattern is more a pattern of random disappearances. Colon threw 4 2/3 IP in his first 5 games, which spanned a period of 2 weeks (including Colon resting 5 days after a 4 pitch outing). Trey's ability to randomly forget that Colon was on the team helped Colon avoid bizarre overuse (that, and Colon's inability to pitch good). If Roman Colon is pitching 40 times for your team, it's a sign that your team sucks.

More expensive does not always equal better, such is the case with Juan Cruz. Juan Cruz was the one relief acquisition that didn't induce protectile vomiting, proving that transaction analysis is not an exact science. What in the hell happened to Juan Cruz is still a bit of a mystery, although the results we see here show that Juan threw lots of pitches per appearance, made a few multiple inning appearances, and quickly worked his way out of a position of trust with Trey Hillman.

Cruz's usage has some quirks. Such as 27 pitches on June 26th after throwing on June 25th. Or 33 pitches on July 9th after pitching on July 8th. But after the all-star break, Cruz's season pretty much went in the tank. He gave up 14 earned runs in the span of 7 innings in 8 appearances (after giving up 18 ER in 39 2/3 IP before the break). He blew saves in two straight games (22 pitches on July 17th followed by 12 on July 18th). Hillman exiled him to mopup duty. Then he went on the DL after throwing 40 pitches in 2 innings. Bizarrely enough, Cruz returned from the DL and threw 41 pitches in 1 1/2 innings pitched. Typically, running a guy out fresh off his DL stint for his second-highest pitch count of the year is weird, at best. How much of the Cruz situation involves him refusing to disclose problems with health or undisclosed flaws/tips in his delivery is unknown.

It was through determination that Robinson Tejeda made it this high on the list. Tejeda's success as a starter has been surprising (but one must abide by the Lima rule and wait for 8 starts or so before declaring the success as real or not). But his usage before then suggests a man being stretched for work as a starter, or a happy coincidence. Tejeda threw the most pitches per appearance. But he also entered with the Royals down almost 4 out of 5 appearances.

Tejada's debut was a 52 pitch relief outing. Followed by 11 pitches in the next 10 days. Tejeda threw 53 pitches in late April, rested 2 days, threw 29 pitches, rested 3 days, and threw 41 pitches. Then he rested for a week, threw 11 pitches, rested a day, threw 43 pitches. Tejeda threw 43 and 31 pitches before going on the DL for a month. That surprised me at the time, because I didn't notice how much work Tejeda got, pitch-wise. After a month-long DL stint, Tejeda threw 18 pitches and rested for 9 days. Credit to Tejeda for his 3 inning, 25 pitch outing in Baltimore, although he rested one day after that and got shelled in his next outing. Generally, Tejeda's usage was in long relief, while allocating more crucial innings to lousier relievers. If Tejeda returns to the pen in 2010, he would be much more useful throwing multiple innings with a Royals lead.

How Ron Mahay got 40 innings of work with the Royals is a mystery. Mahay's April and May were normal, in regards to how often he got the ball. It can be argued that his injury last year was the number one factor in his problems this year (then again, why we sign relievers for 2 years is another problem altogether, we should have traded him last year). But Ron Mahay once had a 3.45 ERA after throwing 45 pitches in 1 2/3 innings.

Then he gave up 2 runs against Detroit and John Bale took Mahay's place in Trey Hillman's heart. Ron Mahay threw 33 pitches on June 3rd, took a week off, threw 7 pitches on June 10th, took a week off, threw 10 pitches on June 17th, and was finally able to convince Trey Hillman that he was still on the roster. Mahay had several more week long rest periods as he recharged in the revitalization pod that he bought from Michael Jackson. Ron Mahay was released into the wild in late August and found a new home with the Minnesota Twins. The Mahay release was unfortunate because Mahay is probably better than John Bale, and the release of Mahay brought the return of Yabuta. That, and we managed to turn down offers of actual players for Mahay in 2008 only to release him in 2009. Dayton Moore is not good at blackjack.

Did you ever go to a garage sale and buy some useless junk? Do you realize that fast food drinks cost around $1.35 when you could pay 75 cents for the same thing from a vending machine? Did you notice that overpaying relief pitchers didn't help this team? The story of Kyle Farnsworth is one of stat padding and repeated epic fail when he was most needed. Smoking at the gas pump is smarter than putting Kyle Farnsworth in a game with a tie or 1 run lead. Farnsworth wasn't used too much in multiple innings, although he recently pitched multiple innings despite having health concerns. There's not usually much pitch count abuse to worry about with Farnsworth since he'll either blow the game open or mop things up without throwing many pitches.

It's a crucial situation, time for the Royals lead dependable guy when it comes to inherited runners! John Bale returned from the disabled list with an awesome outing 2 days after turning 35, which made people forget that he was a 35 year old journeyman. In situations where there was a tie or lead, Bale has either blown the lead or put the Royals behind on 7 occasions. Bale threw 27 pitches in an outing once, but most of the time, he doesn't even pitch an inning. Trey Hillman doesn't believe in LOOGYs but if he did, he'd realize that John Bale is one. Bale has been unspeakably awful against RH batters this year and Trey basically exposes how awful he is with strategy by not realizing this. Extra note: The Royals once carried 3 LH relievers and 3 catchers while only carrying 3 bench players (2 of which were usually catchers).

Actually, I almost overlooked that HoRam qualified for this list. Ramirez is currently pitching a team to the pennant surfing. The overuse of Horacio Ramirez was also the inspiration for my first rant on relief pitching, which did not pinpoint that Tejeda was being worked hard and was going to be on the DL soon. The only insane thing about the usage of Horacio Ramirez is that he was kept around for 2 months. If you don't recall, Moore released Ramirez after finding that no team wished to give us a toolsy South American outfielder in exchange for an overpaid crappy reliever.

And last but not least, Yasuhiko "Shake'n'bake" Yabuta. For some bizarre reason, Trey Hillman decided to try out a guy who is an obvious one-inning guy in spots where he pitched multiple innings or was expected to pitch multiple innings. Yabuta blew the Oakland game wide open after Brian Bannister broke down. He lost the game to the Angels in the 11th. He somehow won a freaking game vs. Detroit. Then he blew a lead against them 2 days later. He mopped up and surrendered a run 2 days later. Then he disappeared for a week. He returned to pitch the 5th after Dusty Hughes' season-ending injury (BTW, yes he also surrendered a lot of runs there). He gave up a run to Boston on the 21st but received a win, then he surrended another run to Boston on the 24th. Yabuta then pitched the 8th inning on September 26th and gave up 4 runs. Yabuta has given up 18 earned runs in 11 innings, after giving up 20 in 37 2/3 IP in 2008.

Joakim Soria has given up 13 earned runs all year and Yabuta has given up 18 earned runs in a month.

When you have the perfect storm of a mediocre pen and a manager who is awful at handling a bullpen, you get the 2009 Kansas City Royals bullpen. It's a bullpen where everybody must randomly pitch 2 innings. It's a bullpen so distrusted that the closer has to come out to pitch 2 innings with a 3 run lead. It's a bullpen that has freaking Roman Benedicto Colon pitching in it for 4 months straight.

The Royals bullpen is an Amtrak train of suck handled by a lousy conductor.

And that is a look at the 2009 Royals bullpen and how they have been used this year.