Royals Rumblings - News for May 14, 2015

Royals Rumblings - News for May 14, 2015

Yordano Ventura struggled early on again last night against Texas.

On Friday in Detroit, Ventura looked lively after serving his seven-game suspension. He gave up four runs, but all occurred in one of his six innings. The other five were spotless, and he pitched with enough passion to encourage Yost. Ventura has earned raves for the velocity of his fastball. But speed is only one element of success. Location is critical. So is a diverse pitch selection.

Ventura re-learned this lesson with his sixth pitch of the game. Perez called for a curveball. Ventura sought heat instead.

"He’s got a dynamite curveball and a dynamite changeup," Yost said. "He’s got other options there that he can go to. He had a lot of confidence in his fastball. But six in a row to good fastball hitter is quite a few."

Everything is fine.

Ned Yost: "I've got no concerns with the starting rotation right now."

— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) May 14, 2015

Alex Rios is hitting off a tee, but still in pain.

For the past two days, Royals outfielder Alex Rios has been taking swings off a tee to test the broken bone in his left hand. Rios has been swinging a fungo bat, which is lighter and places less stress on his hand. Each swing still causes discomfort, a sensation Rios expects to manage when he returns in the coming weeks.

"The pain is still there," Rios said before the Royals faced the Rangers, his former club, at Globe Life Park. "That’s what we’re dealing with right now."

The Royals demoted last year's Minor League Pitcher of the Year Christian Binford to AA Northwest Arkansas after a 5.86 ERA in AAA Omaha and promote pitchers Jonathan Dziedzic and Andy Ferguson to Omaha.

John Viril of Kings of Kauffman writes that Mike Moustakas has begun to hit like George Brett.

Mike Moustakas’ stunning transformation from a struggling position player to star hitter is due to his ability to beat the shift. Yahoo.com’s Jeff Passan asserts Moustakas is the first player to truly exploit the shift since last season’s defensive positioning revolution driven by advanced defensive data.

To achieve this, Moustakas has become an all-fields hitter that isn’t necessarily looking to hit the home run. Sound familiar Kansas City Royals fans? That’s exactly the approach another left-handed hitting third baseman named George Brett adopted around 40 years ago.

It carried Brett to three batting titles and the MLB Hall-of-Fame.

The Royals are the most-watched team in Major League Baseball and have doubled their TV ratings from last year, but not even Fox Sports Kansas City is reaping the benefits.

FSKC General Manager Jack Donovan said the ratings exceed even FSKC's expectations. The high ratings allow the network to ask for higher ad rates for airtime during the games, he said. And with about 90 percent of the advertising inventory for the telecasts already sold, there's a limited amount of inventory left for the second half of the season.

"Agreements that are in place were not negotiated with a 12 rating ... so people who got in on Royals baseball this summer are getting a tremendous value for their investment," Donovan said. "Sponsors who got on board early are having a terrific summer. Sponsors who did not buy Royals baseball missed an unbelievable opportunity."

Royals Director of Analytics Mike Groopman was a guest on Mike Engel's podcast to discuss his department.

David Letterman is counting the days until his last show, so let's revisit the time he made Royals shortstop Buddy Biancalana a household name.

Thoughts and prayers to former Royals infielder Mike Aviles and his family as his daughter has been diagnosed with leukemia.

Here are four pitchers that could be moved at the trade deadline - would any of them be a fit for the Royals?

Corey Kluber struck out a bunch of Cardinals hitters.

Was the Giancarlo Stanton home run hit completely out of Dodger Stadium or not?

Angels closer Huston Street agrees to a two-year $18 million contract extension.

Rob Neyer doesn't think Barry Bonds was colluded against.

Jorge Posada used to fart in umpires faces.

Sudden death hockey.

NBA GMs don't really have a problem with "Hack-a-Shaq."

Best Kiss Cam ever? Maybe if it wasn't staged.

Eater.com tries to uncover the secret southern soul of Kansas City food.

The big winner of the UK elections was SurveyMonkey.

Lawyers with the lowest pay are the happiest.

Wal-Mart is preparing to take over Amazon Prime.

Two million American still use AOL dial-up internet service.

Your song of the day is Alice in Chains with "Them Bones."