Royals Rumblings - News for September 1, 2016

Shooting deaths of sea otters near Santa Cruz are prompting a federal investigation.

The Star’s Sam McDowell details the wrist injury with which Lorenzo Cain has played much of August.

Cain confirmed after Tuesday night’s extra-inning loss to the New York Yankees that he is dealing with left wrist injury that initially flared up two weeks ago. He received a cortisone shot after the game, but a day later, the ailment kept him out of the Royals’ starting lineup for Wednesday’s series finale with the Yankees.

“I’ve just been battling through it so far,” Cain said after Tuesday’s 5-4 defeat in 10 innings. “I feel like I need to be in that lineup no matter what. It’s something I’m probably going to have to deal with the rest of the year.”

Royals manager Ned Yost gave Paulo Orlando the start in right field Wednesday and kept Jarrod Dyson in center field.

Wade Davis should be activated on Friday.

With the Royals sending Chien-Ming Wang to the DL and optioning Christian Colon to Omaha, Scott Chasen writes about how taxed the bullpen is:

"Our bullpen is in dire straights right now. We've had a ton of usage on these guys here in the last four or five days," manager Ned Yost said. "We were hoping to get to Sept. 1, but we just couldn't."

As Yost alluded to, the Royals' bullpen had been taxed over the last week and in this series against the Yankees. Kansas City used four relievers in the series opener on Monday and five more on Tuesday, after starter Edinson Volquez was only able to pitch 3 1/3 innings.

"We just needed arms," Yost said. "Alexander has been throwing really well. And Pounders we've seen before up here and [he's] fresh."

BP Kansas City’s David Lesky looks at what could happen with the Royals in September:

I’ve said this many times, but I’ll repeat it here because that’s okay to do. If they just win every single series without sweeping one, they’ll get to 90 wins. Not that it’s easy, but it certainly seems like something that could happen. If they don’t win every series, they’ll need to find a sweep somewhere or hope that 90 wins really isn’t the number they need.

I would think it would be very difficult to win all nine series they have remaining. They’ll need to take both against Detroit, I’d think, but they can probably stand to lose a series against the Indians if they can really go to town during their 14-game stretch against the Twins, White Sox and A’s. When I say go to town, I mean something like 12-2. That would allow them to just go 9-7 in the other 16 games, which seems like a very real possibility.

So yeah, go ahead and beat the Yankees, but September is where the fun happens. I have visions of Gore scoring from first on singles and Davis closing out games and Bonifacio maybe even hitting a big home run. We’ve done the Septembers with nothing to play for. The way the Royals do it now is much more fun.

Kings of Kauffman’s John Viril spends a lot of time wondering whether Raul Mondesi Jr. should have led off the tenth on Tuesday.

Royals Blue’s Zach Hodson pens an open letter to Jason La Canfora.

Dave Cameron reminds us that prospects like Yoan Moncada are eligible for their teams’ postseason rosters. He also poses the question: how good is Shohei Otani?

At the Hardball Times, Adam Dorhauer explores how Clayton Kershaw compares across eras.

There’s a chance that the U.S. House might be in play for the Dems.

A new medical trial shows progress in fighting early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.

Details on the just greenlit second season of Stranger Things are emerging.

Damien Chazelle’s follow-up to Whiplash, the musical romance La La Land premiered at Venice mostly to rave reviews.

The song of the day is “Hands of Death” by Quin Galavis.