Royals Rumblings - News for August 22, 2016

Royals Rumblings - News for August 22, 2016

Rustin Dodd writes how Danny Duffy became a bona fide ace.

The secret, Eiland says, is the way the slider resembles Duffy’s fastball.

“They have to respect the fact that it’s coming out of the same grip, the same slot, the same plane as my fastball,” Duffy says. “But it’s got a last-second drop to it.

“My curveball had a different kind of effect because it was loopy. It would stay up sometimes. For one, it was extremely frustrating. And two, it wasn’t very effective.”

He would also like to stay in Kansas City.

“I want to be in Royal blue,” he says. “That’s really all I’m about. I was talking to Kelvin (Herrera) … like ‘Dude, how sick would it be to spend more of your life in a Royals jersey than the other part of your life that you haven’t?’ It would be pretty sick. I got drafted at 18. It would be pretty awesome to hang your hat on it and have that kind of career.”

Richard Justice of MLB.com writes that the Royals look like contenders again.

This renaissance is a reminder of how good and deep general manager Dayton Moore's organization is and how good manager Ned Yost is at his job.

"We got everything going for us again," Yost said. "I can't explain it. You just ride it."

No manager does a better job of getting his guys to play hard every single game and to focus on playing one inning at a time.

Mike Axisa of CBS Sports explains how the Royals have climbed back into contention.

As with the rotation, [Alex] Gordon has turned his season around of late, and not a moment too soon for the Royals. Even with Sunday afternoon's 0 for 3 game, Gordon has gone 18 for 59 (.305) with five home runs since August 6, which coincides perfectly with the club's 13-2 hot streak. That has raised his season batting line to a more tolerable .225/.326/.392.

David Lesky of Baseball Prospectus Kansas City says not to overlook the strong pitching of Yordano Ventura lately.

He’s now given up three runs or fewer in eight consecutive starts. In that time, he’s lowered his ERA from 5.15 to 4.46. He’s averaged about 19-20 outs per start in that time, which is exactly what the Royals need from their rotation. He’s lowered his walks enough that they’re not killing him. He’s striking out a few more, but still not as many as we know he’s capable of. He’s just been very solid. Now, this is the second straight year that he’s put together a nice run in the second half of the season, so forgive me if I’m not setting off alarms like I was silly enough to do last year, but this is a solid stretch of pitching, and if the Royals are going to make the playoffs, he has to keep this up

Devan Fink of Cover Those Bases thinks Danny Duffy is a Cy Young contender.

Royals players met privately with the brother of Caleb Schwab, the young boy who died recently at Schlitterbahn.

George Brett’s dogs support Donald Trump.

A Kansas City native who co-starred in Ant Man shows off his new Royals tattoo in his latest film.

Former Royals Billy Butler and Danny Valencia have an altercation in the Athletics clubhouse.

The Angels designate former Royals infielder Johnny Giavotella for assignment.

The Rangers sign outfielder Carlos Gomez.

Jon Heyman writes about ten managers who may be on the hot seat.

Did the White Sox steal signs from the Indians?

A’s reliever Sean Doolittle lists his eight favorite MLB bullpens.

Mizzou wrestler J’den Cox shows class in winning bronze at the Olympics, unlike his opponent.

The NFL doesn’t want Mike Tirico doing games for NBC for some reason.

What will happen to Rio’s stadiums once the Olympics are over?

Twitter suspends 235,000 accounts for promoting terrorism.

The Hugo Awards were handed out in Kansas City, and they celebrated women in sci-fi literature.

Your song of the day is Professor Murder with “The Mountain.”