Royals Rumblings - News for September 6, 2022

Drew Waters won $100 from Zack Greinke for his first big league home run.

According to Waters, who told the story after the Royals’ 6-5 loss in 10 innings to the Guardians, Greinke bet Waters shortly after he was called up that the rookie wouldn’t hit a home run for “the rest of the season.”

“I was like, ‘All right, I hope he’s not putting the bad juju on me,’” Waters said. “But as soon as I went deep, that was the one guy I was looking for in the dugout. He actually wasn’t in the dugout, but as soon as he came back in, I was sure to go up to him and tell him he owed me a hundred.”

Greinke will be activated and start on Wednesday.

“He’s ready to go,” Matheny said. “Fortunately, he didn’t even need to do a rehab assignment. He did it here, got his work in. I know he’s wanting to be part of the mix. I’m just happy he’s feeling good.”

Kevin O’Brien at Royals Reporter thinks Tim Anderson’s defensive turnaround could be instructive for Bobby Witt Jr.

Anderson made his debut for the White Sox in 2016, playing in 98 games. However, 2017 was his first full season in the Majors for a “rebuilding” White Sox team, and as I noted on Twitter yesterday, the defensive numbers, especially advanced metrics, weren’t pretty.

Anderson’s numbers are similar to what Witt has done this year. If anything, Witt’s numbers have been slightly better, and for context, Anderson had a full season to play shortstop for the White Sox that season (i.e. he wasn’t flip-flopping between positions like Witt).

Scott Barlow was on MLB Network last week.

Daniel Mengden cleared waivers and was outrighted to Omaha.

Mike Gillespie at Kings of Kauffman wonders if this is a lost season for Salvador Perez.

Baseball Trade Values ranks the farm system with the Royals at #27.

Former Royals outfielder Andrew Benintendi suffers a broken wrist bone with the Yankees.

Aaron Judge hits home run #54, tying the most by a Yankees right-handed hitter in a season.

Kevin Gausman was livid about a balk call against him.

The Red Sox sign Enrique Hernandez to a one-year contract extension.

Jacob deGrom is reaching a whole new level of dominance.

Wander Franco will resume his minor league rehab assignment.

Ten statistical races that could go down to the wire.

Twenty-two-year-old Munetaka Murakami becomes the youngest Japanese player to hit 50 home runs.

How College Football Playoff expansion will affect realignment, job security and the future of the sport.

CM Punk unloads on Colt Cabana and AEW executives in a press conference.

How the TSA is a failure.

The most popular content on Facebook is old, lame memes.

How horror films reconstitute popular non-scary songs to make them terrifying.

Your song of the day is The Clash with Rock the Casbah.