First off, great win for the Boys in Blue today. Leland was at the game.
Secondly, our pythagorean W-L is 13-16, a full 3-games better than our 10-19 record. One could interpret the pythag. W-L two ways. Either our manager is not putting our players in the best situations to succeed, or the Royals have flat-out been unlucky and will improve over the course of the season. I think it's a combination of both, although the latter will likely be the greater factor over 162 games.
Some positives:
In the league, the Royals are in the middle of the pack in terms of singles and doubles. They obviously lead in triples (with 8).
Even though the Royals haven't been too impressive in this category, they are much better than last year at drawing the walk. They've drawn 85, or almost 3 a game. That's not where we should be, but it's not bad.
The Royals have a 4.30 team ERA. That's surprisingly low considering the number of runs our bullpen (Wellemeyer, Peralta, Riske) have choked up this year.
The Royals K:BB ratio is exactly where it should be. 85 walks to 160 K's. Again, both categories are a significant improvement over what we've seen in years' past.
The Royals' pitchers have also only given up 22 HR's this year (29 games). Again, a marked improvement ("The K"'s park factor would certainly be a factor in this. However, it's still an improvement. )
Some negatives:
Opponents are still hitting .281 against our pitchers.
We need to improve our strikeout numbers, as hitters. 226 strikeouts is head and shoulders above anyone else in the league.
We're only hitting .248. Gload, Sweeney, Grudz, Buck, DeJesus, and Teahen are all performing about as expected this season. If Gordon and Pena step it up, this number could improve slightly.
Buddy Bell has cost us 2 games thus far and possibly (although not likely) 1 more.
I really think Bannister should be sent to the bullpen when Hudson & Elarton return. Hudson should also move to the bullpen. Elarton won't be useful in the pen because of his fly-ball tendencies and atrociously low K/9, K:BB levels. Plus, Huddy at least has some experience as a decent-to-average big-league reliever.
We can't mess with what's working, and simply taking Greinke out of the rotation would be a vast, vast, vast mistake. Not that I'm expecting Moore to do that.
Don't forget about John Bale.
Here's my rotation and bullpen after their returns:
SP - Meche
SP - Perez
SP - Greinke
SP - De La Rosa
SP - Elarton
LRP - Bannister
MRP - Duckworth
MRP - Hudson
MRP - Bale
SU - Gobble
SU - Riske
CP - Soria
However, I have one question. Does Peralta still have options left? If so, I say we send him to Omaha, at least for a couple weeks until Elarton gets back. Wellemeyer gets DFA'ed. Musser gets sent back to Omaha. What does everyone think?
(Although, honestly, I think we'd be better off without Elarton on the team. Although it is very, very, very encouraging that he has gone from our #1 pitcher to our #5 guy, even if the injury aided him there a little bit).
Jack
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