Royals Rumblings - News for April 28, 2016

Jeffrey Flanagan talks with the slumping Lorenzo Cain:

"This feels like the worst slump of my career," Cain said. "But you know, that's baseball."

Actually, as Cain thought about it for a minute, he remembered an even worse slump.

"I think it was 2007 in the Minors," Cain said. "I started out like 0-for-25 and then I got a knock, and then I was 1-for-50 I think. That was bad."

Former Royals Review overlord Craig Brown looks at Mike Moustakas's evolution and fast start:

I’ve written previously about Moustakas and his premium exit velocity in the early part of the season. When we checked the numbers a couple weeks ago, his average exit velocity was above 99 mph. Since then, we’ve collected a little more data and the numbers have stabilized a bit. Through games Monday, Moustakas had put 55 measured batted balls in play with an average exit velocity of 94.4 mph. For perspective, that ranks 14th among all major league hitters. For even more perspective, league average is 89 mph. The ball is still jumping off his bat. The longer this continues, the less you can explain it away with "small sample size." This is a very good development.

While he’s stinging the ball, the BABIP Gods have yet to get the memo. Moustakas is waiting for his batted ball luck to stabilize. His current .224 BABIP is absurdly low for the way he’s been stinging the ball. Especially when you realize his line drive rate is a tick under 22 percent. If you still want to focus on the batting average, Moustakas should be hitting more than .264. Of course, with such a low BABIP that affects his on base percentage as well. His .329 OBP is lower than it should be. The bad luck factor passes the eye test as well. Moustakas has hit some lasers right at the opposition, including one late in the game Tuesday. He’s also made some hard contact on ground balls that were cashed into outs.

Local TV ratings are up  15% from 2015 on Fox Sports Kansas City:

Through Sunday, the Royals have averaged a 13.8 household rating (124,000 households) for their games on Fox Sports Kansas City, according to Nielsen Media Research. That’s an increase of 15 percent over the first 16 games last season. Of the 16 games shown this year, 15 were the highest-rated program that day in Kansas City, the network said.

According to FSKC, the Royals are on pace to have the best April rating for any MLB team since the Mariners in 2002 (15.6). The network said that Royals’ local-market TV ratings this year are the best in baseball.

Clark Fosler takes a walk through the big home run Aprils had in Royals' history.

Raul Ibanez will be replacing Curt Schilling on ESPN's Baseball Tonight,

Always testing the truthfulness of traditional baseball thought, Russell Carleton looks at whether being victims of a comeback has demoralizing effects.

At FanGraphs, Owen Watson looks at the Pail Hoes' hot start.

The chief constable of the South Yorkshire police has been suspended in the fallout of the Hillsborough verdict after reversing course on an apology he'd issued in 2012.

A South Sudanese high school basketball player was arrested in Canada for playing using false records claiming he wasn't 29 years old.

SpaceX plans on sending spacecraft (unmanned) to Mars by 2018.

A look at the evolution of sex on television.

Wet Hot American Summer will be coming to Netflix again in 2017 with the Ten Years Later sequel promised in the original film.

The song of the day is "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield.