Royals Rumblings - News for August 17, 2017

Mike Moustakas is a home run shy of tying the Royals franchise record for home runs in a season.

In the history of Major League Baseball, 508 players have hit 37 home runs or more in a season. None did so while playing for the Royals. The Royals’ single-season record was set in 1985 by first baseman Steve Balboni, who told me in 2013: “It’s 36 home runs. I don’t feel like it’s anything special.”

Joakim Soria has not been great, and apparently has been pitching hurt for a while, including the Royals 10-8 meltdown loss in Oakland:

Soria will undergo an MRI on Thursday in Kansas City. In a pregame interview on Wednesday morning, Yost it was “probably a possibility” that Soria could go on the 10-day disabled list. The Royals are off Thursday and open a three-game series against Cleveland on Friday.

“It really got sore last night and this morning,” Yost said. “This is something he’s been pitching through for, like I said, two weeks.”

Sam Mellinger sat down with Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith and discussed his former teammate Colin Kaepernick:

“It’s hard for me to comment on it,” Smith said. “I don’t know. Lot going on in that landscape right now. Certainly when I was there, he was playing at a really, really high level, right? Had a lot in front of him as far as a career goes. He was playing really good football.

“Crazy to think he’s not playing. Yeah, that’s a crazy thing...”

The New York Mets made for some box score hijinks with multiple, continuous defensive realignments.

Some fun stories about how some baseball players pick their uniform numbers.

Minda broke some gut-wrenching news about Kyle Zimmer:

The case for good editors summed up in one egregious failure of journalism. [NSFW]

Bill Barnwell goes through an exercise of building the best NFL roster while adhering to the salary cap.

The best baseball players are the ones that know not to try too hard.

Jen Nevius has daily minors recaps.

Albert Pujols is continually setting a career record. Jeff Sullivan wants to tell you about it.

Craig Edwards wants you to pay attention to Alex Bregman.

Tim Beckham, the first overall pick of the 2008 draft, might actually finally be good maybe, just after getting traded from the team that drafted him.

CBS Radio told their Las Vegas affiliates not to cover the NHL expansion Golden Knights, and then changed their minds when the memo was leaked.

Do you want to see an errant first pitch hitting an innocent photographer in the junk?

Speaking of hitting things hard, Aaron Judge blasted off so hard that Yoenis Cespedes did not even move.

Hoodie Melo might be the greatest basketball player on the planet.

There will be a Chick-Fil-A in the new Atlanta Falcons stadium, but it will be closed on Sundays.

Former Royals prospect Wil Myers stole second, third, and home in the same inning.

The Dota International had a prize pool of nearly $25 million but eSports remains a niche audience.

HBO accidentally aired the sixth episode of Game of Thrones in Spain.

You all may not actually be alcoholics after all.

Your song of the day is Fortress by Pinback.