Royals Rumblings - News for August 12, 2022

Royals Rumblings - News for August 12, 2022

The players in the clubhouse gave Zack Greinke “player of the game” honors after his outing Thursday.

As it stands currently, the recipient — awarded typically by the veterans on the roster, like Hunter Dozier, Salvador Perez and Nicky Lopez — will say a few words postgame, keeping the vibe light and enjoyable.

Thursday’s player of the game: starter Zack Greinke, who twirled 6 1/3 scoreless innings in the Royals’ 5-3 win over the White Sox at Kauffman Stadium.

His award speech?

“Good job.”

“And then he just walked away,” Lopez said. “It was perfect.”

The starting pitching has been noticeably better lately.

“It’s unbelievable. I feel like every single day you see pitchers throwing 98-100 or 95-plus, that’s the norm now,” Royals infielder Nicky Lopez said. “To see a guy who has played 18 years in the big leagues still doing it with 90 miles per hour, mixing, matching, keeping them off kilter, it’s pretty special to be able to play behind him.”

Confidence is high, writes Anne Rogers.

“I think the confidence is probably at a season high throughout the team right now,” Bubic said. “We’re going inning-by-inning, like, ‘OK, we have a chance to do some damage this inning,’ or, ‘OK, from the pitching side, this is an inning I can shut these guys down right here.’ I think we just feed off that in the clubhouse, we feed off that in the dugout, on the field.”

Vahe Gregorian writes that the team is not intimidated by the first-place Dodgers coming into town this weekend.

But you have to like how Pasquantino addressed it:

“Obviously, we have one of the best teams in baseball coming into town tomorrow night, and they’re not going to scare us,” he said.

“It’s not going to be something where we’re going to be intimidated because these Dodgers are coming to town. We’re ready to play them. “I’m not guaranteeing a win or anything like that. I am going to guarantee tough games and that we’re going to go in and compete, compete our tail off for three games and see what happens.

David Lesky at Inside the Crown likes what he sees from Kris Bubic.

His fastball stood out last night and for two reasons. The first is that he was throwing it hard. He averaged 93 on it, which is well above his season average. He touched 95.3 MPH with one of them and threw 26 of 61 at 93 MPH or harder. As you probably know if you’ve read anything I’ve written about Bubic, he’s at his best when he’s throwing harder. And the second reason is that he obviously really felt good about his fastball because he threw it 62 percent of the time. It’s not the most he’s ever thrown it in a game, but the 61 he threw is tied for the second-most. He was feeling it. And with good reason.

Alex Duvall at Royals Farm Report ranks Royals prospects #21-30.

Gregorian also writes about the deeper meaning of Buck O’Neil’s Hall of Fame plaque being brought to Kansas City.

What other venues should MLB use to host games?

Is Patrick Corbin having the worst pitching season ever?

The White Sox are demonstrating why good enough is not good enough.

Moving back the left field fence has reaped dividends for the Orioles.

Neither age nor surgery can stop Justin Verlander.

Is Francisco Lindor now underrated?

How the government devastated minor league baseball.

The new A League of Their Own television series might be better if its characters were worse.

Pete Sweeney at Arrowhead Pride has a 53-man roster projection for the Chiefs.

The NBA will retire Bill Russell’s #6 league-wide.

Remote workers are starting new businesses behind their bosses’ backs.

Swarms of mini-robots could build the tunnels of the future.

Disney+ has overtaken Netflix in subscriber numbers.

Your song of the day is Lenny Kravitz with Rock And Roll Is Dead.