Wow. Using an exclusive, singles-based attack, the Royals jumped out to an early deficeit Saturday night and never looked back, losing 16-1. Just a complete and total fiasco, complete with the A's drawing 10 walks, hitting 5 doubles, 2 homers and 9 singles. Granted, the mighty Royals managed 6 singles and a double, not to mention, umm, a walk, so it isn't as if it was a one-sided offensive affair.
Just utterly and completely terrible, but I'm sure Buddisimo has straighten everything out today. I mean, when the organizational standard for excellence is correctly filling out the scorecard and being a former player, its hard not to succeed 80% of the time.
Signalling God's punishment of the franchise, the defeat saw Denny Hocking make his Royals debut, giving the Royals the possibility of a Hocking-McEwing top of the order that ranks as possibly the worst of all time.
The other moves can be summed up here, with a nice pilfering from the Star,
The Royals optioned opening day second baseman Ruben Gotay and right-hander Leo Nunez to Double-A Wichita. Another right-hander, former first-round pick Kyle Snyder, was optioned to Triple-A Omaha and veteran catcher Alberto Castillo was released. Kansas City purchased the contract of utility player Denny Hocking from Omaha, recalled catcher Paul Phillips and right-hander Mike Wood from Omaha and right-hander Jonah Bayliss from Wichita.
Sigh. Nothing special here. Gotay's been a bit of a disapointment, but again, the stakes were fairly low to begin with. The most important thing here is the strange release of Alberto Castillo... this from an organization that once held on to Brent Mayne like he was Johnny Bench... And why the continued exile of Calvin Pickering? Mere spite, maybe? Finally, I'm heartened by the call-up of Mike Wood, a generic slightly below league average innings guy that should give them a chance to not lose 16-1 on most nights.
The losing looks to continue tonight, as the Royals face former Cardinal Dan Haren (9-7, 4.27 ERA). The home team counters with Runelvys Hernandez (8-9, 4.49 ERA). Ugg... Who knows, maybe some good things will happen. Haren's non-leftyness should mean that Matt Stairs will get the start over Super Joe, which is essentially all I care about anymore.