Archive for May, 2011

The weekly update of the Royals minor league system that I know you’ve all been waiting for is here.  The affiliates have come back down to Earth and normalized a little bit.  The two most talented teams, the Blue Rocks and the Storm Chasers, continue to stay in 1st place, the Naturals are hovering in second and the Cougars continue to struggle.  Once the rookie leagues start up they will no doubt reveal some talent that will move up and help the Cougars, not to mention Brett Eibner cooming back from injury.  Now, what will probably hurt the Blue Rocks [...]

Eric Hosmer hit the first pitch of the second inning into the seats in right field for his second home run in as many days and Billy Butler had four hits to break a prolonged slump as the Royals overwhelmed the Yankees on Thursday. The win gives the Royals their first series win in New York since 1999.

In a way, if you watched this game, I’m sorry.  Yankees games run notoriously long because it seems other teams can never figure out how to throw strikes to them.  Compounding that problem was the fact that the Yankees themselves couldn’t throw strikes either. Four and a half hours after first pitch, the Royals had won 4-3 in 11 innings. The key factor in the game was the play of the team’s rookies and some timely outs. Honestly, the Royals shouldn’t have been in this game.  And yet…

I know it’s a computer-generated system that provides Baseball Prospectus with their playoff odd indicators, but man, give the Royals a little credit. They currently hold a second place spot in the American League Central in arguably the worst division in the game. So far through statistical proof, the Royals aren’t the reason this division is foul. You can place the blame on the gut wrenching play spewing out of Minnesota and Chicago. Those guys are really stinking up the place and Detroit is barely ahead of them. But yet, history deems well in this circumstance and the BP computers still have the Royals programmed to lose. As [...]

If you told me that the Royals would hold the Yankees to three runs with Kyle Davies starting, I’d have thought that we got away with a win and probably also that I was dreaming. Neither were the case on Tuesday. The Royals mustered just one run on a fourth inning Melky Cabrera homer and otherwise did very little against Freddy Garcia and the Yankees bullpen.  In the last three innings, the Royals struck out five times, including two consecutive caught looking by Cabrera and Alex Gordon to lead off the eighth inning. Despite that, opportunities were there.

Bruce Chen was placed on the disabled list this afternoon with a lat issue, paving the way for Vin Mazzaro to make his move up to Kansas City.  He’ll start Wednesday at Yankee Stadium. It’s a rough blow to the Royals, as they lose their most consistent starter this season for a few turns.  Chen has a 3.59 ERA in 42.2 innings over seven starts. While he was expected to be a regular in the rotation coming into the season, Mazzaro was left in the minors since the Royals didn’t need a fifth starter for a while to open April. [...]

April 2, 2007 was supposed to be the turning of a franchise, the day the semi-local kid that grew up a Royals fan was supposed to be the cure to a two-decade-long drought of awfulness and bring the organization back to relevance. Looking back it was probably too much to put on the kid. Heck, at the time it was probably too much to put on the kid. For someone that had never played a game above Double-A miracles and amazings were expected, and there was little room for error. The story since that first at-bat strikeout has been well [...]

We’re all excited about the arrival of Eric Hosmer.  The theme of the newest installment of the Royalman Report was “Help is on the way” – a phrase I liked so much I borrowed for the weekly recap here on Kings of Kauffman. Topics of discussion from this week’s show: A solid homestand. Eric Hosmer The timetable for other prospects and call-ups. The pitching staff Who stays, who goes? (tougher question than you’d think) Jeff Francoeur and intangibles Being Royalman You can download the mp3 directly here. You’ll definitely want to follow The Royalman Report on Twitter, as airtime updates [...]

After a three game sweep of the dreaded Twins, the Royals hosted Baltimore and Oakland.  Before hitting the road, they finished up the homestand going 3-3, winning series over the Orioles, but dropping a home series for the first time against the A’s. Still, a 6-3 homestand is fine, especially when the Yankees await starting tomorrow night. The pitching staff really stepped up, having their best overall week. Oh, and they called up some guy.  Supposedly, he’s pretty good.

Despite putting the leadoff hitter on base in five of nine innings, the Royals score in just one, putting up two runs in the sixth. It fit the narrative of the whole series against Oakland, as the Royals managed just 18 hits over the three games against the A’s.  Tyson Ross did just enough to keep the Royals from producing runs, while Jeff Francis got behind in the first inning and the A’s added single runs in later innings to pull away. It was a disappointing end to a 6-3 homestand that included a Royals sweep of the Twins.

Have we mentioned that Eric Hosmer is in the big leagues? No really, I’m concerned that Kansas City fans might not be aware that he has made it to the show. There really haven’t been enough articles about his ascension and debut. That being said, here’s another!…..sort of. Ryan addressed a great point yesterday in his article regarding Kila Kai’aihue. It’s hard to remember that amid all of the hoopla* that surrounded and surrounds Eric Hosmer’s rising star, another player with hopes of finally making his mark in the Bigs was sent down to the all too-familiar minors. *Yup…..hoopla I’m [...]

Luke Hochevar had his most efficient start of the year, holding the Oakland A’s to one run over seven innings, but got a no decision.  Aaron Crow gave up his first runs of the year, allowing Cliff Pennington to tie the score with a homer in the eighth. Eric Hosmer got his first major league hit – a single through the hole at second.  He was also intentionally walked in the bottom of the ninth. And for the sixth time this year, the Royals won in walk-off fashion.