Royals Rumblings - News for October 2, 2019

Jorge Soler’s record-settin’ dinger mashin’ earned him a third consecutive Royals Player of the Month award, while Danny Duffy was named Pitcher of the Month.

Soler, 27, led the Royals in September with 10 home runs and 20 RBI, his second straight 10-homer, 20-RBI month. Prior to August, the last Royal to hit 10 homers in a month was Mike Sweeney in June 2001. Soler’s first home run of the month, on September 3 vs. Detroit, was his 39th of the season, which broke a tie with Mike Moustakas (38 in 2017) for the Royals’ single-season record. Soler homered in consecutive games three times in September and had a pair of multi-homer games, on September 11 in Chicago and on September 28 vs. Minnesota. He reached safely in each of his last 14 games and recorded a hit in each of his last eight, including a home run in Game 162 to finish the season with 48, becoming the first Royal ever to lead the American League in home runs.

Former Royals reliever and coffee maker Peter Moylan has nominated himself to manage the Royals following the retirement of Ned Yost:

The Washington Nationals advanced in a playoff situation, coming back from a 3-1 deficit in the 8th to defeat the Brewers 4-3.

Sheryl Ring at Beyond the Boxscore talked to “baseball cop” Eddie Dominguez, who wrote a book about his time as an investigator for MLB’s department of investigations. It was, apparently, an ugly job.

“After fifteen years I saw that... It’s an ugly business. There’s a lot of corruption,” Dominguez said. “It wasn’t all bad. But if I could take it back I would love to. I’ve lost my love for sports. It’s not the same. That was my primary reason for writing the book – to express what I saw that a lot of people don’t see. There’s a lot more to it, but that was my primary reason.”

Also at BtBS, a look at Tyler Duffey’s adjustments making him a weapon for the Twins, written by Patrick Brennan. WAIT, we know Patrick Brennan!

Former Royals pitcher Brian Bannister, now the Red Sox VP of pitching development, was among those who talked to David Laurila of FanGraphs about developing his own changeup:

I originally had a four-seam grip, but I realized that created backspin, which was bad. So I went to a two-seam grip and tried to see how much I could turn it over, how much I could pronate my arm — similar to how Max Scherzer describes his. I tried to think about how much depth I could put on it, instead of how slow I could throw it. That was the difference for me.

The Angels followed their firing of manager Brad Ausmus by firing their pitching coach and bench coach.

Kyle Boddy of Driveline Baseball now works for the Reds, too.

If Nashville landed an MLB team, their home might look like these renderings.

‘Sesame Street’ is 50 years old, which means many Royals Review readers grew up with it. Here’s a fascinating look at what went into developing a curriculum for it.

Dolphins are returning to the Potomac River following a prolonged watershed restoration and cleanup effort.

The Highwomen are BACK as the Wednesday song of the day. The little bounciness in the chorus in the “lucky penny” line delights me every time. I want to see someone do a jaunty quickstep to this song.