Royals Rumblings - News for July 27, 2017

Jeffrey Flanagan reports that despite sitting on Wednesday, Salvador Pérez should be fine:

"This will give him two days off," Yost said. "Could he have started tonight? Yeah. In fact, he fought me about it. But it's better to take the two days off and be ready for Boston on Friday. He'll be back then."

Perez has been dealing with a strain on his left side for several weeks, but this injury is on the other side. Both injuries occurred while swinging the bat.

"It's nothing major at all," Yost said.

Flanagan also touched base with Steve Balboni, whose club home run record is in serious danger of getting broken my Mike Moustakas (and possibly Pérez):

"I really have been too busy to follow it too closely," Balboni, presently a San Francisco Giants scout, told MLB.com. "But there have been KC scouts I run into who give me updates. So I follow it that way. So, I knew he had a lot.

"My record is not a huge number, so I would think it would get broken."

Balboni said while he hasn't given much thought to the record going down, he probably will have some mixed feelings when and if it does.

Eric Hosmer’s grand slam last night means discounted pizza.

BP KC’s David Lesky posits that KC’s pen is built for the postseason:

I imagine the eighth and ninth won’t change. That’ll still be Soria and Herrera, which I’m sure people have opinions about, but both are very good relievers and I would expect them to excel in their roles. Beyond that, the Royals have the ability to mix and match in ways most teams don’t. I’m assuming they continue on with an eight-man bullpen because Ned Yost doesn’t believe in a bench, so let’s take a look at what they have to offer beyond their main setup man and closer.

From the right side, they have some thunder. Admittedly, some of that thunder is from down under and not on the radar gun in Moylan who is just death to right-handed bats (.168/.258/.215). Then they can go to Neftali Feliz, who hasn’t been great on the whole this season, but has thrown some quality innings. Or there is their new acquisition, Brandon Maurer, who throws 97 and might be a small adjustment or two away from being a dominant reliever himself.

From the left side, this is where it gets special. With the addition of Ryan Buchter and the crazy spin rates on his fastball, they have three guys who can dominate a game. Scott Alexander has a 93-95 mph sinker that generates ground balls at a rate rarely seen. Minor has a great strikeout to walk ratio and a 2.69 ERA.

Per BP’s Eric Roseberry, Salvador Pérez is the most valuable fantasy catcher (maybe subscription required). Keith Rader also scouted Lorenzo Cain, the scouting report is definitely subscription-required.

Joe Posnanski takes the old “home runs kill rallies” nonsense to task.

David Price apparently does not like being criticized by broadcasters.

Dave Cameron breaks down the Red Sox trade for Eduardo Núñez.

FanGraphs’ Paul Sporer tries to figure out what’s going on with Lance McCullers.

Jon Jones floated the notion of fighting Brock Lesnar in a superfight. Lesnar said, “Anytime, anywhere.”

Half of our bodies’ atoms originated outside of the Milky Way, so we’re basically all aliens.

The Trump administration is looking at opening up national monuments and other federally protected lands to logging, mining, etc, specifially Giant Sequoia National Monument, endangering what needed protection.

Season Three of True Detective is coming together with Mahershala Ali getting cast.

Revisiting the fishing villages abandoned during a controversial Canadian resettlement program.

Jon Stewart will have two HBO stand-up specials.

The song of the day is “Friends” by Francis and the Lights, featuring Bon Iver and Kanye West.