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Game CXXXXI: Kansas City Royals Versus New York Yankees (3:10 CST)

There's a storm coming.

By J.K. Ward
Jamie Squire

Last night was some enchanted evening, as the Royals hung on to win 1-0 off of an unearned run against Michael Pineda and the Bronxers. James Shields was electric. Wade Davis made Brett Gardner verbally distraught, and made Carlos Beltran look like a thirty-seven year-old playing a child's game.

Meanwhile, the Tigers lost in stunningly brutal fashion to Los Gigantes del Beisbol. And as of this writing, they are losing 4-2 in the top of the third inning, with David Price on the mound.

Tonight, the Royals will send Danny Duffy to the mound. A lot of me worries about it. He's an extreme flyball pitcher in a stadium with notorious home run issues. His K/BB ratio (2.16) leaves something to be desired, particularly for a player whose FIP (3.69) is so much higher than his ERA (2.42).

But hey. Crazier things have happened in this already manic-depressive-hysteria-driven season. The Royals can take the series and set themselves up for the Sunday sweep tomorrow.

In order to do so, they will have to defeat former Arizona Diamondback and consensus winter 2012 "The Royals should really target this guy in the off-season" Royals Review Award™ recipient Brandon McCarthy. If there is one thing that may set Kansas City and their flawed offensive approach up for success against McCarthy, it is the fact that he throws strikes. A lot of strikes. It is one of the things that has contributed to his league-average WHIP despite the fact that his BB/9 rate is just 1.60.

A contact team going against a strike thrower who gives up a lot of hits. What could possibly go wrong?

LINEUPS:

POETRY:

The Writer

In her room at the prow of the houseWhere light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,My daughter is writing a story.I pause in the stairwell, hearingFrom her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keysLike a chain hauled over a gunwale.Young as she is, the stuffOf her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:I wish her a lucky passage.But now it is she who pauses,As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.A stillness greatens, in whichThe whole house seems to be thinking,And then she is at it again with a bunched clamorOf strokes, and again is silent.I remember the dazed starlingWhich was trapped in that very room, two years ago;How we stole in, lifted a sashAnd retreated, not to affright it;And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,We watched the sleek, wild, darkAnd iridescent creatureBatter against the brilliance, drop like a gloveTo the hard floor, or the desk-top,And wait then, humped and bloody,For the wits to try it again; and how our spiritsRose when, suddenly sure,It lifted off from a chair-back, Beating a smooth course for the right windowAnd clearing the sill of the world.It is always a matter, my darling,Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wishWhat I wished you before, but harder.


--Richard Wilbur

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