Royals Rumblings - News for June 26, 2021

Song of the Day

“Feel Like I Do” - Vin Diesel

We’re officially in Summer and I watched F9: The Fast Saga last night (greatest piece of cinema ever created btw). So it’s fitting that I throw in this piece of artistic history for this week’s SOtD. Enjoy!

On to the Rumblings...

Alec Lewis rounds up the recent updates on some pitching prospects for The Athletic.

Another essential developmental point will be Kowar’s fastball command, which made him so successful at Triple-A Omaha before his promotion. Royals director of pitching performance Paul Gibson had said Kowar commanded the heater well in four of his six Triple-A outings, and in the outings when his fastball drifted, Kowar was able to make the adjustments.

In his three outings with the Royals, however, he was not. You can chalk some of it up to nerves and adrenaline, the result of a player trying so hard to be perfect. Regardless, Kowar’s location+ (81.3) — a statistic that assesses the run value of where a pitch is placed given the count and batter handedness — ranked second lowest in Major League Baseball among all pitchers who have thrown a minimum of 130 pitches, behind only the Braves’ Wright.

Lynn Worthy writes for The KC Star that the Royals should be encouraged by Kris Bubic’s latest appearance.

“We watched Kris Bubic take a huge step forward (Tuesday) in his career,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “I think it was one pitch that may have changed the trajectory of his career (Tuesday) where he, in the biggest spot that he could be put into, trusted a pitch that we need to see the usage improve on. A lot of it has to do with faith, believing in it to make the other pitches good.”

Bubic, 23, came in out of the bullpen to replace his draft classmate Brady Singer in the fourth inning with two outs and the bases loaded in a tie game.

The batter? Giancarlo Stanton.

Yes, that Giancarlo Stanton. The 6-foot-6, 245-pound chiseled right-handed hitting former MVP, four-time All-Star and two-time Silver Slugger with five 30-homer seasons and one 59-homer campaign under his belt.

Sticking with The Star, Pete Grathoff wrote about Danny Duffy crossing the 10 year service mark.

Anne Rogers reflects on Ryan O’Hearn’s roller coaster season for mlb dot com.

The adjustments continue for O’Hearn, who’s going to get ample opportunities with Adalberto Mondesi on the injured list and Hunter Dozier and Jorge Soler struggling offensively. The Royals need another big bat in their lineup, and O’Hearn is primed to be that for them — if he stays consistent.

“I want to be here always, so every time you get called back, I’m pumped to get back,” he said. “But mentally, it’s like, ‘OK, let’s stay here this time.’”

Keith Law still has the Royals taking Kumar Rocker at 1.07 in his newest mock draft for The Athletic

7. Kansas City Royals: Kumar Rocker, RHP, Vanderbilt

The market for Rocker is weirdly specific — it’s Texas, Boston, KC and Washington, with the Mets a possibility, too. The Royals have also been heavy on House and are naturally linked to Jobe since he’s sort of local, although they haven’t taken a high school pitcher in the first round since they took Ashe Russell in 2015.

Batoul Hammound with Kings of Kauffman has some evidence of how Nicky Lopez turned his game around.

Over at Inside the Royals, Mark Van Sickle highlights some players you can trust on the Royals.

The College World Series hit a Covid snag, when the start of the game was delayed due to “an undisclosed number of NC State players” entering Covid protocols. Turns out, NC State entered the game with 13 active players to take on Vandy and future Royals future, Kumar Rocker. Rocker shined again, going 6.0IP giving up 1ER and striking out 11.

A discovery of a “Dragon Man” skull in an abandoned well in China might be a new species of ancient human species.

The release of the Dune remake was delayed again, this time for 3 more weeks.

I know nothing about Shang Chi from Marvel but they dropped a new trailer the other day and I’m very intrigued.

Speaking of Marvel, Loki has been awesome so far.

Speaking of shows in its third episode of a new season, Dave was finally good this week.

Adrenaline Rush of the Week

The first airplane ride as the parent of a 1 and a 4 year old

Shoutout to Hokius for covering for me last week as I was enjoying my first out of town trip in two years. We’d spent this whole COVID period (so far) being hyper conservative with where we go, who we visit, how we get there, etc. So we finally got out of town to visit some family and it required boarding a winged metal tube and cruising through the clouds.

Before we could do that, however, we had to brave the sadistic obstacle course of parking, baggage drop off, and the TSA. Turns out that when you add an infant to a family of three, it greatly adds to the physical, emotional, and mental load that the parents have to carry.

The good news is that we took off and landed twice in total, with minimal meltdowns (all of them from me because how in the Blue Hell is there only 2 baggage drop kiosks open at 11:30 AM?!?!!) and we were able to get out of town for a much needed family vacation.

Bonus Adrenaline Rush of the Week

F9: The Fast Saga

This franchise just keeps getting more and more ridiculous and I love it. I swear every time they head to a writer’s room, they get a group of 8-10 year olds who are on an absolute sugar binge, give them some toy cars, and say “go” while piecing together their story boards.

“What if a car could run into a bridge post so hard that it lodges itself into the car’s axle and Tarzan’s over a huge cliff, bounces perfectly off a rock, rolls 3-4 times, and lands on all three wheels?”

Pump it right into my veins...

I’ve been catching this movie on premiere night since Fast Five with a growing group of people (read family). No, we’re not gear heads. No, we don’t race our wind up toy cars on an empty quarter mile in the middle of the night surrounded by beautiful people. We love this for the escape it provides. And for the most part we are surrounded by people cut from the same cloth. It is genuinely a different experience in the theater and it’s always a blast. And this installment was no different. It’s not going to change your life or win any awards unless it’s for an MTV Movie Award for Cheesiest Delivery of the Word “Family” While Holding a Corona”, but it was great suspending your disbelief for an evening.

And if you aren’t interested in the FnF franchise and your opinion of me has lowered, I hope you enjoyed watching the Royals get throttled by a 27-48 Texas Rangers team. I’m sure you thought it’d be more entertaining than watching a car fly through the air.

Spoiler alert!

It wasn’t.

Have a Saturday everyone!