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Royals Rumblings - News for October 29, 2015

The next game at the K will host the Mets. Will it be next week or next year?

By Max Rieper
Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Royals Rumblings - News for October 29, 2015

Johnny Beisbol was marvelous last night.

Moose talks about how the Royals got to Jacob deGrom.

Eric Hosmer has 27 RBI in his first 28 post-season games. Only Lou Gehrig has more in his first 28 post-season games.

The Royals handled Jacob deGrom's heat pretty well.

They may have known what was coming.

Interesting wrinkle in Andy McCullough's recap on how the Royals are a bit vexed on defensive shifts.

At times in Game 1, Kansas City unveiled an exaggerated defensive shift for Lucas Duda, New York’s left-handed, pull-hitting first baseman. Moustakas ventured over to the far side of second base. Duda still pulled a pair of hits through the defense. In the view of some team officials, he capitalized on the awkwardness of the alignment.

The Royals debated the merits of the shift heading into Game 2. Moustakas remained on the left side of third in Duda’s at-bat in the second, but Duda still threaded a single through the area vacated by shortstop Escobar. In Duda’s next at-bat, he found another way to vex the Royals. He flared a single over Moustakas’ head to score Murphy.

Lorenzo Cain's ill-advised bunt attempt in Game One did not come from Ned Yost.

"He was bunting on his own there," manager Ned Yost said after the game. "We give our guys the freedom to play their style, give them the freedom to bunt. A lot of times we'll put hit and runs on, but I don't think I put four bunt signs on all year. And he just felt like our best chance of winning the ballgame was to get it down, get the runner at third and drive him in from there."

Edinson Volquez arrives at his father's funeral in the Dominican Republic but vows to rejoin the team in New York.

Ned Yost talks about the decision tonot tell Volquez about his father's passing.

Royals manager Ned Yost said Volquez’s wife, Roandry, informed general manager Dayton Moore a couple of hours before the game. "We said, ‘Look, it’s up to you guys, this is more important than a baseball game,’" Moore said. Roandry Volquez called Edinson’s mother and they decided to not inform him until he was finished pitching. At that point, Moore told Yost and described the situation in a meeting with coaches Dave Eiland, Don Wakamatsu and Pedro Grifol and the group put together a contingency plan. Chris Young was told to be ready in case Volquez decided not to pitch. "My gut feeling was he was going to go out and pitch because there was nothing he could do," Moore said.

Dan Levy at Awful Announcing writes about the decision by FOX not to air the news about Volquez's father passing.

Fox made a human decision during Game 1, even if that meant the viewers who didn’t already know the news had to wait until later in the game to have their heartstrings tugged. Fox didn’t allow those who didn’t know the news to make it about them, like the rest of us—surely myself included—kept making it about us. Given the circumstance, that was probably for the best.

Ben Zobrist ain't going anywhere.

Salvador Perez had some pine tar on his shinguards in Game One because it was a wet night. No one cares,w rites Craig Calcaterra.

This all falls under the same general ethical umbrella that the sunscreen-on-pitchers-arms stuff does. As we learned back when Clay Buchholz was making headlines about this two years ago, almost all pitchers use something to get a better grip and, really, no one cares. Either for the stated reason — what Collins said about better grip — or for the more plausible reason: the pine tar or whatever it is does give the pitcher an advantage but their pitchers are doing it too, so there’s no percentage in getting into accusations over it during a game. Heck, Yogi Berra was doing this for Whitey Ford before your mom was born. If Yogi did it, who are you to throw stones?

Interesting point made in the broadcast last night, that Johnny Cueto was tipping his pitches in Toronto.

Jon Heyman profiles Royals General Manager Dayton Moore.

While Moore may not be a sabermetric expert (though he is very proud of the Royals' saber department, which includes an MIT man, a Columbia man and a Vanderbilt/Notre Dame man, and they're taking them all out to fields to make them more well-rounded), he may well be the best leader in the game. The entire organization seems to love him. And that isn't true everywhere, of course.

"There's not a day you wake up and don't want to charge the hill for him," Gene Watson, the Royals' director of professional scouting, said. "You just don't want to let the guy down." "His people skills are so good," Royals scout Paul Gibson said. "He's so much fun to work for."

Ted Berg at USA Today writes that Kansas City is the best baseball town in American right now.

Adam Kilgore at the Washington Post seems to agree.

Eno Sarris at Fangraphs writes that Matt Harvey had career-worst stuff against the Royals in Game One.

Chris Mitchell at Fangraphs tries to project Raul Mondei's career.

Nicholas Stellini at Beyond the Boxscore writes that the Mets don't have much of a shot against Wade Davis.

Lorenzo Cain was named to the Sporting News All-Star Team, while Wade Davis was snubbed.

Wade was also snubbed for the Mariano Rivera Award, honoring the top reliever, in favor of Andrew Miller.

Some Royals fans were caught smoking a joint at Kauffman Stadium on SportsCenter.

The Nationals hire former Royals pitcher Bud Black to be their new manager.

The fifteen biggest plays in baseball history.

Former big leaguer Lenny Dykstra says he spent $500,000 investigating umpires so he could blackmail them.

Minnesota football coach Jerry Kill has to retire due to health reasons.

Soccer player Abby Wambach retires as the greatest of all-time.

Why don't people use mass transit in smaller cities?

Why did Yahoo!'s foray into television fail?

The new Apple TV is getting pretty good reviews.

Your song of the day is Europe with "Halfway to Heaven."

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