Royals Rumblings - News for May 26, 2022

Royals Rumblings - News for May 26, 2022

Anne Rogers writes about the early success for MJ Melendez.

“I love being able to take on new roles, whatever I can do to help the team and show what I can do,” Melendez said at the time of his promotion. “Wherever the team needs me, honestly.”

As Melendez continues to gain big league experience — he’s now up to 18 games — Matheny believes the backstop is getting more comfortable, which is leading to early positives.

“He’s starting to see some successes,” Matheny said. “That allows him to be free, to just go play the game and let his athleticism shine.”

She also writes that Emmanuel Rivera is a player to watch.

“I feel really good at the plate working on recognizing pitches,” Rivera said. “Definitely feeling like I’m gaining trust in these at-bats. It just feels good to be having that kind of confidence at the plate.”

JJ Picollo was asked when fans can expect to see Vinnie Pasquantino and Nick Pratto in Kansas City.

“We’re gonna eye them this year at some point, but we do have to feel confident that they’re completely ready for it,” Picollo said on the “Cody and Gold” show. “Nick is on the (40-man) roster, so he’s less complicated than Vinnie Pasquantino. We certainly wouldn’t let the roster situation dictate whether Vinnie comes up or not, but with Nick being on the roster, it is a little bit easier transactionally.

“They’re both playing well. They are different types of hitters. Nick’s going to provide some slug and maybe a few more homers. There are some things we still feel like he needs to improve on. Vinnie is unbelievable with his strikeout-to-walk ratio, especially considering how big of a guy he is. He tends to use the whole field really, really well. So there’s a lot of good things that he’s doing. We have to remind ourselves that this is his first year in Triple-A, and he only had half a year at Double-A.”

David Lesky at Inside the Royals writes about the most recent pitching blow up on Tuesday.

In some ways, you almost can’t get mad. They hit pitcher’s pitches. In other ways, it’s just another game that the Royals got knocked around, and it just gets more and more infuriating every day when you think about the garbage spewed regarding the pitching coach. I’m not saying that a change would make a huge difference immediately or even that a change would have made much of a difference tonight, but it keeps bringing me back to the word they used - accountability. And there remains none.

Jared Perkins at Royals Farm Report profiles prospect Jake Means.

Kevin O’Brien at Royals Reporter writes that Royals fandom is complicated.

Teams are taking odd strategies to pitch to Giancarlo Stanton.

Eric Lauer’s breakout has flipped the 2019 trade where the Brewers acquired him.

How Aaron Judge increased his value.

Mookie Betts is back in MVP form.

The Blue Jays are using a four-man outfield more than anyone else - how is it working?

The Jordan Hicks starter experiment in St. Louis may not be going well.

Who are the most watchable players in baseball right now?

An early look at next year’s free agent class power rankings.

Anaheim City Council votes to kill the sale of Angel Stadium to Angels owner Arte Moreno.

Long Beach wants to lure the Angels.

MLB unveils a new partnership with Unmind, a platform to help with mental health.

Are there more blowouts in the NBA playoffs than there used to be?

How to fix the NFL Pro Bowl.

How could humans go extinct?

How many bots are there on Twitter? Hard to say, and it really misses the point.

Now that he is in the public domain, Winnie the Pooh will be getting a horror movie.

Your song of the day is Missy Elliott with The Rain.