Royals Rumblings - News for July 22, 2015

Royals Rumblings - News for July 22, 2015

The decision to demote Yordano Ventura has supposedly been in the works for some time.

The decision appeared stunning on the surface — the Royals had named Ventura their Opening Day starter and lavished a $23 million contract upon him — but Kansas City had been contemplating Tuesday’s move for weeks. "We’re at a point where we’ve got to put our best guys out there," Yost said. "We’ve got to win games. We want to try to win this division. So performance matters."

Clark Fosler at Royals Authority was not alarmed by Yordano's outing on Monday.

If Ventura had been enjoying the type of season we were all hoping for this year, I might just chalk this up to ‘one of those nights’. Given Yordano’s odd season to date, you wonder if this is not just ‘one of those nights’, but going to be ‘one of those years’. One untrained thought might be that Ventura, whose fastball velocity was dancing just under 100 mph most of the night, is throwing too hard and, as has a tendency to happen, too straight. That is untrained eyes and ten minutes of thought (interrupted by a yogurt and coffee) and could be totally off base....

You have swinging strikes right next to balls in play (no outs) in the middle of the zone. You also have a good number of swinging strikes out of the zone, which to me indicates that Ventura has some stuff going last night and might well invalidate my observation two sentences before. I don’t know, boys and girls, just one of those nights?

In his Twitter Tuesday, Sam Mellinger discusses the ups and downs of Eric Hosmer.

We went over this a bit last week, but basically, I think Hosmer is in the beginning stages of adjusting back to the pitchers’ adjustment to his adjustment. Simple, right? A lot is expected of Hosmer, and that’s how it should be, but the expectations cloud the fact that even with some struggles he’s OPSing .796. He could be higher, and should be higher, but this isn’t 2012 when his .232/.304/.359 line essentially got Kevin Seitzer fired. I believe in Hosmer. I believe in his talent, and his ability to hit to all fields, and I believe that his drive and athleticism will give him every opportunity to be a star. I also believe that, like a lot of guys, he sometimes lets his swing get a little long, which can often feed struggles.

Vahe Gregorian looks at the Raul Ibanez pep talk that was the catalyst for the Royals run, one year later.

To some, the players-only meeting led by Raul Ibanez surely prompted all this. "Obviously, it changed the attitude, and it really changed the way we went about things around here last year," Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer said. Added center fielder Lorenzo Cain: "Something that we needed … It definitely helped us and turned things around." Trouble is, the narrative isn’t universally shared.

"There was a lot more made out of it than probably should have been," said Yost, who greeted the question with a blank stare. With a laugh, pitcher Jeremy Guthrie said, "For every story (in which) a meeting was the turning point, you could write five or six where a meeting just went by the wayside and happened and no one cared."

Ben Cerutti scouts the Royals farmhands against the Cardinals farmhands at Viva El Birdos.

Royal Ball refutes Andy McCullough's diagnosis of Yordano Ventura.

The competitive balance draft lottery is today, with the Royals having a 4.2% chance at getting the top pick.

The Navy unveiled a rendering of the new combat ship the U.S.S. Kansas City before the Royals game on Tuesday.

The price of a beer at the K is slightly higher than the league average.

Salvy is a big fan of Empanada Madness, on Southwest Boulevard.

A ten-year old hit in the face by a Mike Moustakas home run says it was "cool."

Baseball is growing in popularity in Brazil, thanks in part to Paulo Orlando.

This year's rookie crop may be historically good.

Will the Tigers be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline?

We are finally safe from Barry Bonds as the federal government has ended its prosecution of him.

Best Klans in Baseball?

The NHL is accepting expansion applications, and no one from Kansas City has submitted one.

Becky Hammon becomes not only the first female coach in the NBA Summer League, but the first to win a championship.

Mark Cuban thinks the NBA playoffs should be expanded.

Is Jack White the worst thing to happen to rock music? #hotmusictake

Apple sold a billion dollars worth of Apple watches last quarter.

Stephen Hawking will head a $100 million project to find extra-terrestrial life.

Your song of the day is Counting Crows with "Omaha."