Yankees Series Summary (4/10-4/12)

Yesterday the Royals finished up their series with the New York Yankees.  By winning the final game they avoided the sweep and finished 1-2.  For the season the Royals are 3-3 and tied for second place heading into the games today.

Friday 4/10
The Royals lost the home opener 4-1.  Considering the pitching matchup was Pettitte versus Sidney Ponson, it could have been much worse.  Despite the opinion of some, including the Kansas City paid media, Ponson did not pitch well or put up anything close to a quality outing.  On the flip side, he didn’t pitch as terribly as most fans expected and he did keep the Royals theoretically in the game.  Ponson went 6.0 innings allowing 4 earned runs while striking out 5 and putting up a WHIP of 1.50.  He threw 104 pitches for the game with 59 of them strikes.  It wasn’t a good start, but it wasn’t terrible and most fans can probably live with his performance.  The problem I have with Ponson, aside from mediocre pitching, is the fact he has more often been associated with being a clubhouse cancer as opposed to a clubhouse character.  He pitched well enough to keep my 2008 Livan Hernandez scenario alive.  On a more positive note, the Royals bullpen pitched brilliantly.  Farnsworth pitched the 7th and struck out the side in order.  He continues his career trend of pitching well in low-leverage situations with little on the line, while imploding when it matters.  Professor Farnsworth was followed by Jamey Wright who threw the 8th and 9th innings, striking out 3 and allowing only 1 hit.  Unfortunately the bullpen brilliance was overshadowed by the offensive ineptitude.  On the day, the Royals hitters managed only 4 hits and 1 walk.  Pettitte, Bruney and Rivera combined to strike out 10 Royals batters.

Saturday 4/11
The operative word heading into Saturday’s game was mismatch.  C.C. Sabathia took on Horacio Ramirez and both delivered on pre-game expectations.  CC was brilliant going 7.2 shutout innings allowing only 6 hits and no walks.  Ho-Ram was terrible and lasted only 4.1 innings giving up 8 hits, 6 runs and 2 walks.  It was a similar line to what he did the entire spring and looked to me to basically be throwing batting practice to the Yankee hitters.  The offense was slightly better getting 7 hits and drawing one walk, but the end result was the same as the previous day.  Down 2-0 before they even saw a pitch the offense failed to show up and the Royals lost 6-1.

Sunday 4/12
Sunday was the 1st game that the Royals had the advantage in the pitching matchup as Meche was opposed by Joba Chamberlain.  Behind the arms of Meche, Cruz, and Soria, the Royals salvaged the series finale 6-4.  It wasn’t as smooth as Meche’s first outing, but he threw far better than his pitching line would suggest.  In 7.0 innings he allowed 6 hits, 4 runs and walked 2.  Chamberlain went out and proved yet again that he belongs in the bullpen.  He was nearly untouchable the 1st time through the Royals order, but the 2nd time around they started to figure him out and started making more solid contact.  At the end of 6 innings the Royals held a solid 3-1 lead, but in the top of the 7th Meche started to falter and the Yankees took a 4-3 lead.  It looked like another opportunity lost until the bottom of the 8th with 2 men out when Billy Butler pinch hit for Jacobs and drew a walk.  Hillman did the logical thing and put TPJ in to run for Butler (finally finding a little bit of value for TPJ on the ’09 roster).  Brayan Pena doubled in TPJ to tie the game.  Callaspo singled to drive in Brayan Pena, who incidentally had one of the ugliest slides into home plate you will ever see.  Then, the star of the game, John Buck doubled in Callaspo to put the Royals up 6-4.  The game was over as Soria came in for the ninth, striking out the side in his typically dominating fashion.

Series Impression:
The starting rotation threw 17.1 innings with a 7.27 ERA, 1.56 WHIP and 13 SO.

The bullpen was absolutely brilliant. In 9.2 innings of work they posted a 0.00 ERA, 0.62 WHIP and 13 SO.

For the series the Royals remained offensively challenged hitting .188 (18/96) while walking 4 times and striking out 24 times.  They left 18 runners on base en route to scoring only 8 runs.  In the 3 games they hit 6 2B, 1 3B, and 1 HR.

They cut Jimmy Gobble this spring because they didn’t want to keep a guy just because he was a lefty.  Then they turn around and are keeping Ho-Ram in the rotation just because he is a lefty.  Talk about hypocrisy.  At least Gobble was successful in his role from time to time.  Ho-Ram needs to be removed from the rotation and moved to the bullpen without further delay.  If the Royals don’t want to call up Hochevar, they should at least let Robinson Tejeda or Jamey Wright take Ho-Ram’s place in the rotation.  Ho-Ram has me longing for Brandon Duckworth at this point.

Upcoming Series:
The Royals continue their homestand tonight with the Cleveland Indians in town for a 3 game series.  The Indians’ rotation is atrocious so this is a good opportunity for the bats to come to life.
4/13 Fausto Carmona vs. Zack Greinke
4/14 Carl Pavano vs. Kyle Davies
4/15 Jeremy Sowers vs. Sidney Ponson

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