Royals Rumblings - News for July 25, 2017

Your normal Rumblings starter is unavailable, so AAA Farmhand has been called up for a spot start. This means it’s Science Tuesday in the links section (if not necessarily the comments, given the first item below).

In case you were camping or something Monday evening, the Royals made a major move with little warning, ambush-trading Matt Strahm, Travis Wood, and Esteury Ruiz to the San Diego Padres for Trevor Cahill, Brandon Maurer, and Ryan Buchter. Cahill is the centerpiece, a 29-year-old RHP who immediately improves the rotation. Hot takes will be flying, but at first glance this seems like a pretty good move: the Royals get a solid rental starter with two more decent relievers under longer-term control in exchange for a good but injured pitcher who couldn’t help them this year anyway, a pitcher they won’t miss, and a long-term but high-upside prospect. Royals Review will have a lot more to say about this trade today, so let’s move on to the suddenly-obsolete rest of the Rumblings.

Brandon Moss talks to the Kansas City Star about trying to overcome his awful start to the season. Is this just another streak, or has he actually figured something out?

Even if Moss still reckoned he’d come out of it sooner or later, he was troubled by the when.

“Will it be too late to make a difference?” said Moss, who is 8 for his last 19 with 8 RBIs. “That’s the … thing that was eating me up. Playing all those close games and you know you can make a difference. And you’re not.

South Side Sox summarizes the weekend:

As the old saying goes when playing the Kansas City Royals, “After Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer, Lorenzo Cain, Sal Perez and maybe Alex Gordon, you can’t let Whit Merrifield beat you.”

Are the Tigers done with trades? Bless You Boys considers the status of the Royals’ current opponent:

Manager Brad Ausmus said he wouldn’t be surprised if the Tigers are done dealing this season. After a questionable return on J.D. Martinez, half the league is in on Justin Wilson. Trade speculation is swirling around the likes of Ian Kinsler, Justin Verlander, and Alex Avila, and some dude in Philly has a bad take on a possible Fulmer trade. But Ausmus is all ready to be done. I’ll hazard a guess that he’s the only person who is thinking this way.

The Indians are “definitely going to be active at the deadline”, writes Let’s Go Tribe. But should they also have been rooting for the Royals lately?

But you have a duty now. A duty to root for the Royals to be a great team — heck the best team in baseball — over the next month. It might hurt, it might make you feel icky, but it’s the right thing to do. Whatever it takes to make them hold onto their fleeting stars until it’s too late to trade them is your sacred duty as an Indians fan right now.

[Editor’s note: the Cahill trade looks like the worst of both worlds for Indians fans based on this rationale. *giggle*]

The Cardinals are “teetering away from contention”:

The box scores, the standings, the statistics, and the anecdotes all reveal what the Cardinals need to contend, and now there is one more thing they don’t have.

Time.

How are various MLB stadiums adopting renewable energy? Trigger warning: features Busch’s adoption of CFLs but ignores Kauffman’s solar installation.

Speaking of solar, we recently installed a 4.77 kW array on our barn. Are people like us going to ruin the utility grid before renewables can fully take over?

Speaking of farms, widespread damage from herbicide drift over the last two years finally caused Missouri and Arkansas to temporarily ban the use of Dicamba this summer; damage included up to $2 million in losses at Missouri’s largest peach orchard last year. Now a class-action lawsuit alleges that St. Louis-based Monsanto, the maker of Dicamba, quietly encouraged illegal spraying. Meanwhile, Missouri quickly lifted the ban again.

Speaking of disasters, scientists are testing a new algorithm that can use Twitter to pinpoint the location of natural disasters and their victims, possibly aiding first-responders.

Speaking of victims, communities along Lake Ontario continue to suffer from months of excessive lake levels and heavy rain, including flooding and major declines in business at a small port town that figured heavily in my childhood.

Speaking of suffering, my favorite science writer, Ed Yong, wrote a nice profile of Norm Pace, a spelunking scientist who helped revolutionize our understanding of microbiology but is now fighting advanced melanoma.

Speaking of rapidly-spreading corrosive diseases, the American Scientist analyzes online discussion sections to show how anyone can become a troll.

Speaking of trolling, there’s likely some going on after Jamaica’s underdog national soccer team stunned Mexico in a Gold Cup semifinal on Sunday evening, setting up a championship match with the United States in San Francisco on Wednesday evening (8:30 central, FS1).

Speaking of important home games, after Sunday’s win, the Royals had notched 30 home wins, tied with the Astros and Orioles for most in the AL (only the Dodgers and Rockies had more in the NL). On Monday, the team embarked on a tough 9-game road trip that won’t end until they host the Mariners at Kauffman on August 3rd. We’ll all be looking forward to our first in-person look at Trevor “Neville’s Toad” Cahill and Friends in a home uniform, so here’s your song of the day: the Wailin’ Jennys with “Heaven When We’re Home”.