Royals Rumblings - News for September 11, 2019

The fact that Matt LaMar let artificial intelligence write last night’s recap was a lot more interesting than the game itself:

As the fans began to chase [Kelvin] Herrera, he put his arms on the back of the dugout, while several players ran out of the dugout toward Herrera and said, “Hey, Herrera!” It is unclear whether Herrera had an official word about the issue or if he was just shouting to attract Herrera’s attention.

The fans are now going over Herrera’s back to try to calm him. When the fans start chanting “Good afternoon! Good afternoon!” Herrera responds with “Good afternoon!” but is unable to answer. When Herrera is asked who he is supposed to be cheering for, he responds “Cristiano Ronaldo” and is immediately booed by the crowd.

Sam Mellinger’s Minutes were mostly about the Chiefs, but he took a stab at what the Royals will look like in 2021 if they’re contending (a scenario set up by the question-asker, not by Sam):

Center field: Bubba Starling. He’s shown himself to be what the front office expected: really good defensively, and a significant work-in-progress offensively. He’ll get another long look next year, but the Royals can’t count on this quite yet.

Right field: Jorge Soler. I’d explore a trade, but assuming the bat is real — and I’ve seen enough to believe it is — he would be a valuable piece in the middle of the lineup as a DH and occasional outfielder.

Ken Schultz at Outsports wrote about the Royals finally having a Pride Night, and that it’s better late than never.

To their credit, even though they were late to the party, the Royals understood the kind of message it would have sent if they hadn’t added a Pride Night to their schedule. As team spokesman Toby Cook told Fox 4 Kansas City, “You get to a point where not doing it is a statement in and of itself.”

At KC Kingdom, Cody Rickman looks at five players who could help the Royals in 2020.

Bonus Royals discussion question: Where is the weirdest or most unexpected place you have ever watched a Royals game?

Elsewhere in baseball:

Evidently, people like going to baseball games they can actually afford:

A total of 41,504,077 fans passed through the gates at Minor League Baseball games in 2019, marking the 15th consecutive season that Minor League Baseball’s 176 teams in 15 leagues drew more than 40 million fans.

The new general manager of the Orioles continues his firing spree, including many people from the player development side.

This list of the biggest roadblocks facing every MLB playoff hopeful team is pretty good, but they forgot to include the Royals.

Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich fractured his kneecap and will miss the rest of the season. You can watch the video, and you will feel sympathetic pain when you do.

But here’s an even worse way to get a season-ending injury: fighting with your own teammate, as Kyle Crick of the Pirates did.

And in OTHER news:

KFC is making a dating simulator, in case Colonel Sanders is secretly your type.

Chiefs head coach Andy Reid remains a true delight:

“I’m old, they’re old and we just fit,” Reid said, smiling. “It’s funny how the old things are kind of the cool things. It might be the last little bit of cool I have. It’s run from the top of my head, with the long hair; now it’s no more hair. But I got the Air Force 1s, man. They can’t take them away.”

The advice column of the week is a twofer from Slate’s Care and Feeding: an atheist parent’s teen daughter is rebelling by going to Quaker meetings (the horror!) and another parent needs help with a 24/7 Taylor Swift problem. Columnist Nicole Cliffe, who I want to be when I grow up, answered both wonderfully.

The Guardian published a piece on emerging lie detection technology.

The album of baseball dog photos, as ever, lives here.

MUSIC TIME: Am I just going to post the Highwomen album, one track at a time, every Wednesday? MAYBE.