Royals Rumblings - News for June 24, 2021

Royals Rumblings - News for June 24, 2021

The Royals shipped Jackson Kowar to Omaha to make room for the return of Danny Duffy.

“Just telling him a couple things,” manager Mike Matheny said. “One is that we’re going to need him. Right now, this isn’t ideal for a young player to get the repetition he needs and wants. … And it’s all going to come down to fastball command. He had that in Omaha, there was no doubt. You don’t throw up those kinds of numbers without it. But there were a couple things mechanically, some data that we got from his extension and stride length and trying to get him some more consistency on his changeup and breaking ball.”

In his Mellinger Minutes, Sam touches upon the confounding Adalberto Mondesi situation.

For me, the view is pretty clear: the Royals and Mondesi need to do everything possible to figure out if his training needs to change, if he needs to play through some pain, if he’s simply not built for the merciless grind of a 162-game season* or whether he is simply the unluckiest man in professional sports....

Because right now all we know are the following three truths: Mondesi is far too talented (and under club control three more years) to give up on, he’s injured far too often to count on, and the player and team cannot keep doing exactly what they’ve been doing.

Vahe Gregorian writes that the Royals can’t let the absence of Mondesi bury them.

At least for one night he embraced opportunity created by the absence of Mondesi and converted that for the Royals, whose season, for all its oddities and wretched stretches, also has featured the best record in baseball until May 1 and remains to be defined no matter when Mondesi returns … or for how long.

Because in the meantime, the Royals have to try to control what they can control, as Matheny put it after this game.

An update on Salvador Perez after he left last night’s game after being struck in the mask by a ball.

Lynn Worthy writes how Greg Holland gets perspective from his son.

“He said something to the effect of you need to start being that good again,” Holland said playfully. “I was like, ‘I’m still pretty good. You know, there’s not a lot of us in the world that do this.’ He says, ‘Well, you gave up a home run the other night, and then you gave up a grand slam too.’

“It’s just like, you kind of laugh it off because the way he analyzes is how a 6-year-old does. Take it with a grain of salt and move on, I guess.”

Alec Lewis writes how the Royals discovered Scott Barlow.

“He had stuff,” Sharp said. “But he’s not the only guy on the field who had stuff. Once you hit that Double-A area, a lot of those guys have the ability. Then it becomes about the opportunity. Then it becomes execution. Aptitude. All the things that are under the hood. I didn’t know what Scott Barlow’s aptitude was at that point. It’s difficult for scouts to ascertain some of that info. The majority of (his progression) is Scott’s ability to process information once he’s given the opportunity. You’re placing bets. We had a lot of boxes checked on this guy. The idea was, ‘If we can acquire him or sign him in some way, it makes sense to do that.’

“Then we’ll see what the upside can be from there.”

Jarrod Dyson reached ten years of service time last night, an important milestone.

Kevin O’Brien at Royals Reporter writes why it is so important for the Royals to have depth.

Anthony Castrovince looks back at one of the odder baseball cards of all-time - Bob Hamelin.

Rob Manfred thinks things are going really well with the crackdown on foreign substances.

Shohei Ohtani becomes the first pitcher to bat for himself while the opposing NL team used a DH.

Indians pitcher Aaron Civale is out 4-5 weeks with a finger injury.

Mets lefty Joey Lucchesi will need Tommy John surgery.

Mets slugger Peter Alonso will defend his Home Run Derby title.

The Twins have their own oft-injured enigmatic talent - Byron Buxton.

Kevin Goldstein explains why teams wait to make trades.

Which teams will be buyers and which will be sellers?

The NBA draft order is set, here’s a mock draft.

The rise of the $10 million disc golf celebrity.

A lab test shows that Subway’s tuna sandwich has no tuna in it.

Eccentric billionaire John McAfee is found dead in his jail cell just before extradition.

Britney Spears pleads for her 20-year abusive conservatorship to end in court.

Your song of the day is Blackstreet with No Diggity.