Pitching Perspectives (5/4-5/10)

The Royals finished the week with a 4-3 record.  They are now 18-14 and percentage points behind the Tigers for 1st place in the division.

Kansas City

IP

H

R

ER

BB

SO

HR

PC

ERA

WHIP

Gil Meche

5.2

8

4

4

3

7

1

120

6.35

1.94

Zack Greinke

9.0

6

0

0

0

10

0

104

8.0

4

1

1

0

5

0

115

0.53

0.59

Kyle Davies

4.0

8

6

6

3

2

2

95

6.0

3

1

1

3

4

0

95

6.30

1.70

Sidney Ponson

7.1

8

1

1

1

1

0

85

1.23

1.23

Brian Bannister

6.0

5

0

0

1

7

0

105

0.00

1.00

Totals:

46

42

13

13

11

36

3

2.54

1.15

Rotation Assessment:
Week 1: 3.62 ERA and 1.21 WHIP
Week 2: 1.91 ERA and 1.27 WHIP
Week 3: 4.38 ERA and 1.10 WHIP
Week 4: 6.46 ERA and 1.67 WHIP

Meche was off again and despite the quotes and documentation to the contrary, you have to wonder if the back continues to be an issue.  Hillman letting him throw 120 pitches framed by the stints with back issues in the last 3 months is a red flag.  Meche is being overworked.  Many of his pitches are high-stress, which puts a much greater strain on a pitcher’s frame than low stress ones.  Speaking of low-stress pitches, Zack Greinke continued his amazing start to the 2009 season and is well on his way to earn AL pitcher of the month honors for May.  Davies had a very rough 1st start but bounced back in his 2nd start of the week.  The walks are still an issue, and my optimism that this will be his breakout season is starting to wane.  Sidney Ponson had his best start of the year and was rewarded with a demotion to the bullpen in favor of Luke Hochevar who will take his place in the rotation.  I have long been a proponent of getting Ponson out of the rotation and off the team, but the timing of this seems peculiar at best.  Sidney has never been know as a clubhouse guy, and I have serious doubts that heading to the pen will help his disposition or the team.  Brian Bannister had an excellent outing.  As I wrote about in an earlier article, BB has had runs like this in all of his ML seasons.  The telling tale will be whether he can maintain this level of performance and consistency beyond a handful of starts.

The Bullpen:

IP

H

R

ER

BB

SO

HR

ERA

WHIP

Juan Cruz (R)

3.0

1

0

0

3

5

0

0.00

1.33

Kyle Farnsworth (R)

3.0

2

0

0

0

3

0

0.00

0.67

Ron Mahay (L)

2.1

4

0

0

0

3

0

0.00

1.72

Horacio Ramirez (L)

0.2

0

0

0

0

1

0

0.00

0.00

Joakim Soria (R)

1.0

2

1

1

2

1

0

9.00

4.00

Robinson Tejeda (R)

2.0

3

1

1

1

3

0

4.50

2.00

Jamey Wright (R)

4.0

5

3

1

1

3

0

2.25

1.50

Totals:

16.0

17

5

3

7

19

0

1.69

1.50

Week 1: 2.30 ERA and 0.83 WHIP
Week 2: 5.87 ERA and 1.70 WHIP
Week 3: 3.75 ERA and 1.25 WHIP
Week 4: 2.52 ERA and 1.36 WHIP
Wright again led the pen in workload for the week.  He has pitched 19.2 innings in the 32 games played thus far this year.  At his current pace, he will throw approximately 99.2 innings over the course of the entire season.  The obvious negative for the week was Joakim Soria going on the DL after he had another bad outing.  Presumably Juan Cruz will become the primary closer while Soria is out.  I have confidence that Cruz will be able to get the job done, but how the rest of the setup duties are assigned will be a good measure of Hillman’s managerial ability.

It may not last the entire season, or even another week, but we haven’t seen this level of pitching top to bottom in a very long time.  Five Royals pitchers, all with at least 10 innings of work, have ERAs under 2.00.  When was the last time we were able to say that?