Pitching Perspectives (4/6-4/12)

The Royals finished the opening week of the season with a 3-3 record and tied for 2nd place in the division.

Kansas City

ERA

WHIP

Gil Meche

7.0

100

3.21

1.07

Zack Greinke

6.0

0.00

1.00

Kyle Davies

7.0

103

0.00

0.71

Sidney Ponson

6.0

104

6.00

1.50

Horacio Ramirez

4.1

12.47

2.31

Totals:

37.1

3.62

1.21

Gil Meche (0-0) was the only member of the rotation with 2 starts in the 1st week. He took the mound Tuesday against the White Sox and Sunday against the Yankees. Meche continued to make good on the $55 million they Royals paid him in December of 2006. In his two starts he threw 63.4% of his pitches for strikes, had a 7.71 SO/9 and 1.29 BB/9. Although the stat line for his 2nd start doesn’t show it, Meche was brilliant in both starts.

Zack Greinke (1-0) pitched on Wednesday against the White Sox and outside of giving up 3 walks was essentially perfect. On top of 10.5 SO/9 and 2.33 SO/BB, Greinke threw 60% of his pitches for strikes. All 3 of the hits he allowed were singles.

Kyle Davies (0-0) equals wow! As brilliant as Greinke was in his 1st start, Davies was even better on Thursday against the White Sox. 65% of his pitches went for strikes on top of his 10.29 SO/9 and 4.0 SO/BB. Just like Greinke, all 3 of the hits he allowed were singles. He was dominant down the stretch in 2008, the best pitcher on the staff this spring, and followed it up with the Royals best start of the week.

Sidney Ponson (0-1) pitched the home opener Friday against the Yankees. His stat line sums up his poor performance which was difficult to watch. Since most Royals fans, myself included, were expecting something terrible, poor seemed like a pretty good result. Ponson threw only 56.7% of his pitches for strikes and would have had the worst start of the week for the Royals rotation, but he was saved from that by:

Horacio “BP” Ramirez (0-1) who proved that having a lefty in your rotation can be a negative. His start against the Yankees on Saturday made fans long for the chance to watch Sidney Ponson pitch again. My one defense of Ho-Ram is that he is certainly consistent. He flat sucked all of spring training and he continued to suck throughout his 1st start. Only 50.7% of his pitches were strikes, he allowed 10 men to reach base in only 4.1 innings and he owes me a couple hours of my life back. I believe he has value to the Royals in the bullpen but the book on him as a starter should be shut immediately.

Rotation Assessment:
For the first week dominance was defined as Meche, Greinke and Davies. I still believe that Greinke should have started opening day, but you can’t argue with what Gil Meche has done. That there is even an argument about who should start opening day due to quality options is evidence that the Royals are moving forward as an organization. Ponson and Ho-Ram are evidence that there is still a lot of work to be done. If Horacio makes another start for this team I am probably going to be sick to my stomach. One of the reasons offered for Hochevar being sent to Triple-A to start the year was that the Royals wanted him to work on some things and pitch deeper into games. Surely they jest since Ho-Ram is the alternative. Bruce Chen, Heath Phillips and Brandon Duckworth all had decent 1st starts in Triple-A and I’m pretty sure they could pitch better than what Ho-Ram has done for the last month and a half. Bottom line, if a pitcher makes Sidney Ponson look like a good option, that pitcher should probably not be in your starting rotation.

The Bullpen:

ERA

WHIP

Juan Cruz (R)

3.0

0.00

Kyle Farnsworth (R)

2.0

13.50

2.00

Ron Mahay (L)

1.0

0.00

1.00

Joakim Soria (R)

3.0

3.00

0.67

Robinson Tejeda (R)

2.2

0.00

1.12

Doug Waechter (R)

2.0

0.00

1.00

Jamey Wright (R)

2.0

0.00

0.50

Totals:

15.2

2.30

0.83

Outside of Farnsworth’s opening day outing, the bullpen was flawless for the first week of the season. The 2.30 ERA and 0.83 WHIP are simply dazzling. Even more impressive is the 11.49 SO/9. Dayton Moore wanted to build a bullpen with swing and miss capability and build it he did.

Inevitably they are going to have bad weeks, and few will probably be as good as this one, but this is certainly a major positive for the team. In all sports confidence is a powerful tool. With a bullpen pitching like this the rotation can pitch even more aggressively knowing they’ve got quality arms coming in behind them. The one weakness of this bullpen is the lack of quality bullpen depth down in Triple-A.

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