Weekend Rumblings - News for April 18, 2015

Weekend Rumblings - News for April 17, 2015

Last night, Brett Lawrie slid hard into second base, ramming into Alcides Escobar and knocking him out of the game. Let's see what the A's have to say about it:

"No one’s trying to hurt anybody," Lawrie said. "In the sixth or seventh inning, in a tight ballgame, no one’s trying to hurt anybody there. …. I was right on the bag, no doubt. It wasn’t like I overextended myself to go get him. He was right on top of the bag. That’s just baseball right there."

Lawrie disputed the notion he went in cleats up - one of his feet came up as he hit the bag. "No, no, no doubt. I would never try to cleat anybody. That’s not it. … the intention was not there for that ever," he said.

Uh, if you say so. Let's take a look at the video.

Spikes high. Not clean. Bad slide. https://t.co/AKz1ug2Kly

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) April 18, 2015

Now back to his quote.

"No one’s trying to hurt anybody," Lawrie said. "In the sixth or seventh inning, in a tight ballgame, no one’s trying to hurt anybody there. …. I was right on the bag, no doubt. It wasn’t like I overextended myself to go get him. He was right on top of the bag. That’s just baseball right there."

Lawrie disputed the notion he went in cleats up - one of his feet came up as he hit the bag. "No, no, no doubt. I would never try to cleat anybody. That’s not it. … the intention was not there for that ever," he said.

Sure.

Clark Fosler at Royals Authority wrote about how (before last night) Ned Yost's handling of his pitchers has been surprisingly good.

At worst, through nine games, Ned Yost is even on the pitcher handling scale.

I’ll be honest, I think Ned is better than even.  With this bullpen, it is a little hard to make a bad move, but I will give Yost some credit for being creative.

Yes, the seventh inning is Herrera’s, the eighth belongs to Davis and Holland is the closer, but remember last year when Yost stubbornly adhered to those roles and also to Aaron Crow being the ‘sixth inning guy’?  Yesterday, with Jason Vargas struggling, Yost went to the currently ordained sixth inning guy, Jason Frasor, in the FOURTH inning.

Billy Butler's return to Kansas City was a rush of memories, and he received his championship ring before the game.

Standing in front of the mound were Royals owner David Glass, general manager Dayton Moore, manager Ned Yost and outfielder and longtime teammate Alex Gordon.

A montage of highlights from Butler's eight seasons as a Royal rolled on the scoreboard's video screen. Mostly home runs from the team's primary designated hitter but the loudest cheers were saved for a replay of Butler's stolen base against the Angels in an American League Dvision Series

"They can't take that bag away from me," Butler said in a news conference before the ceremony.

Other items of interest

Star Wars fever is sweeping the world, but George Lucas has not seen the new trailer yet. I guess George Lucas can do what he wants.

Airbus makes some of the largest airplanes in the world. They are now packing 11 people into a single row on some flights. I will not fly on this Airbus.

There's a bill that would ban former Congressmen from lobbying. For life.

President Obama proposed in his State of the Union that community college should be free. Educators don't think this is going to happen.

Your photo gallery is this week's best space pictures. Space is pretty rad.

Weekend classic

Your weekend classic is Igor Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, culled from the Firebird ballet, from 1919. I am performing this piece tonight with the Liberty Symphony Orchestra. It is hard.

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