Well, it was bound to happen.
Jeremy Guthrie made his 29th start in a Royals uniform Friday night, and for just the second time in Royal blue, he failed to pitch five full innings. Guthrie was yanked in the third inning after giving up six runs on five hits and three walks in a 9-1 loss to Chicago. It was the shortest stint for Jeremy since last August when he gave up seven runs in two plus innings against Boston. Those are the only two games since being acquired by the Royals on July 22 that Jeremy has had a Game Score of 20 or less. Since that date, Luke Hochevar has done it three times, and he's not even in the rotation anymore.
Is it a sign regression to the mean is finally catching up to Jeremy? Perhaps, but one game is probably too early to make that call. Amazingly, despite his general crappiness, Jeremy avoided the long-ball, leaving it to Bruce Chen to give up a big three-run home run to Dayan Viciendo and a line-drive two-run home run by Alejandro De Aza. Wait, players can hit home runs in Kauffman Stadium? WHAT KIND OF SORCERY IS THIS?
The Royals managed just one walk and one home run in eight innings against Hector Santiago, which Dayton has already explained is perfectly reasonable in this park. Of course, that means they should be getting a lot of pitches to hit, and collecting a ton of hits right? Is three hits a lot? I'm sure we can blame that on Kauffman Stadium too.
Just a pathetic night on offense, a crummy start by Guthrie, a stupid error by Escobar, and to top it off, Hawk Harrelson is happy tonight. What a terrible night.