D's Notebook

Tag: baseball (Page 8 of 22)

R’s: Some Week

August 4, 2015 /

Some week for Your Kansas City Royals! Let’s review.

Last Sunday they acquired Johnny Cueto from Cincinnati then went out and beat Houston ace Dallas Keuchel to get a series win against a possible playoff opponent.

Monday they flew to Cleveland and pounded the Indians in game one.

Tuesday they made another trade, grabbing Ben Zobrist from the A’s. That night, behind a clutch homer by Eric Hosmer and perhaps the best defensive play you will ever see, edged the Indians and Trevor Bauer 2–1.

Wednesday was a nasty get-away day loss to Cleveland.

Thursday in game one against the dangerous Toronto Blue Jays, Danny Duffy couldn’t keep the ball in the stadium and the Royals fell 5–2.

Friday the bullpen coughed up a lead in Cueto’s first start, leading to a loss in 11 innings.

Saturday the Royals came back from an early deficit, with Zobrist hitting two home runs, to stop the losing streak.

And then Sunday. An early HBP, with Edinson Volquez plunking Josh Donaldson in the first inning, got things started. Donaldson got brushed back two more times, another Toronto hitter had to lean away from some high heat, and when Alcides Escobar got hit in retaliation there was shouting and pointing and side hugs as both benches cleared. Apparently it was too hot to fight, though, and things never got out of hand. Escobar getting hit nearly backfired on the Jays, as Zobrist went deep to make it a one-run game in the 8th. But Kelvin Herrera gave those runs right back and the R’s took their fourth loss in five games. They still have the best record in the AL and the biggest lead in baseball. This winning thing is new to many Royals fans, so we’re having to learn (or relearn) how to not panic over the inevitable cold stretches in a 162-game season.

As for Sunday’s nonsense, the in-game stuff wasn’t terrible. Most of the Blue Jays hang out over the plate, looking to take away the inside part of the plate and crush anything over it or away. Volquez had every right to try to establish that the inside of the plate was his. I think the umpire’s refusal to toss him was an indication that this was a reasonable/defensible strategy on Volquez’s part.[1] The Blue Jays, especially noted hot head Donaldson, should quit bitching when a pitch is three inches inside and wouldn’t be close to a batter that wasn’t crowding the plate. You want to throw your body out there over the plate, you have to be prepared to shut up and take your base if you take one in the shoulder.

I wish Escobar had done exactly that – shut up and taken his base – when he got hit. It was obvious someone on the Royals was going to get hit. He took one in the knee. There was no need to stand around and stare and pour just a little bit of gas onto the fire.

Then again, it was hot, these are baseball players we’re dealing with, unwritten rules to worry about, and a lots of testosterone flowing. That last part is especially problematic.

Things got silly after the game, with stupid Twitter posts that seemed to raise the temperature level even further, followed by the inevitable apologies and walking back of rhetoric on Monday.[2]

It was a dramatic, exciting series between the best team in the league and the most explosive team in the league. Both teams made big moves last week. As much as the Royals helped themselves, the Blue Jays likely helped themselves even more. Toronto seems to be the team outside the current AL playoff standings most likely to make a run and claim a spot before the season ends. A Blue Jays – Royals playoff series could really be something, harkening back to those KC-NY match ups in the 1970s when the teams hated each other and there were often physical encounters during games.

So it was a big week for the Royals. Between acquisitions, amazing plays, and the drama of the Toronto series, about as active of a regular season week as I can remember.

  1. Of course, if you’re a Toronto fan, or if things had been reversed, the opposite argument is certainly worth discussing.  ↩
  2. Seriously, someone take away Yordano Ventura’s phone anytime he gets fired up.  ↩

Johnny Friggin’ Cueto!

July 27, 2015 /

Holy shit!

Normally this time of year, Royals fans are begging general manager Dayton Moore to sell off the team’s most valuable free-agent-to-be to bring in more prospects for the future. Two years ago, it was Ervin Santana. The Royals kept him and went on a tear through August and September that saw them fall just short of making the playoffs.

Last year it was James Shields. A week after the All-Star break the Royals were floundering and it seemed like the smart move to sell Shields and hope 2015 might finally be the year. Moore stood pat and, well, the next three months was one of the best stretches in my life of loving sports.

But this year the Royals are in a completely different place. Best record in the American League. Las Vegas’ favorite to win the World Series. There would be no selling this year. The question was how aggressive would Moore be in bolstering his team for the stretch run. A utility player or two who could provide defense and better hitting options that the current backups? A bold move to replace Alex Rios or Omar Infante? Or another arm for the beleaguered rotation?

There had been rumors aplenty that the Royals were seriously looking into acquiring Cincinnati ace Johnny Cueto. I discounted them quickly. That was too big a move for the Royals to make. No way would Moore package the two or three high-end prospects needed for two (hopefully three) months of Cueto. More likely he’d go after someone like Cueto’s teammate Mike Leake, a good, sometimes very good, pitcher who can also be mediocre and would slot into the back of the rotation. Moore needed another pitcher, but he wasn’t going to blow up the minor league system for a late-summer rental.

But holy shit he pulled it off!

I LOVE this trade. Freaking love it. If as much for the symbolism of the move than the actual exchange of talent. The Royals are all-in for 2015! Sure, Brandon Finnegan might figure out his mechanics and find the right role and be a stud. Sure John Lamb might remain healthy and turn into a solid, middle of the rotation starter for a decade. Sure prospect Cody Reed might blossom and turn into the best arm in the deal. But all of that is future and unknown. Cueto is now and real.

Flags fly forever, or so the saying goes. Johnny Cueto’s presence guarantees nothing for the Royals. As the Royals learned last year, when they came from behind to beat Oakland, you want nothing to do with the Wild Card game. While the Royals have the best record in the AL now, who knows what will happen over the next nine weeks. Even if Cueto isn’t great, maybe he’s good enough to get one or two more wins that Chris Young or Joe Blanton or, ahem, John Lamb would have earned over the same stretch and can keep the Royals in one of the top two playoff spots.

And then he’s as good as any #1 starter the Royals might see in game one of the ALDS or ALCS. Cueto, Edinson Volquez, Danny Duffy, and Yordano Ventura?[1] Hell yes I’ll go to battle in the playoffs with that rotation!

I’d still love the Royals to grab another bat. But the way guys like Paulo Orlando and Cheslor Cuthbert keep providing hits in huge moments, I almost wonder if the Royals can stand pat and hope Alex Gordon comes back 100% healthy in another month. Still, I would not be disappointed if Moore could find a way to snag Ben Zobrist, or someone else who can play multiple spots and provide good at-bats in big situations.

What a time to be a Royals fan! There was last October. Now we have the team with the American League’s best record and biggest divisional lead. And they’re making one of the biggest splashes in acquiring talent for the final third of the season. Black is white, up is down, dogs and cats living together.

  1. Perhaps in his brief time in KC Cueto can be another steadying influence on Ventura, as Shields was for Duffy last year. A huge potential bonus to the trade.  ↩

R’s: Oh No

July 9, 2015 /

Each of the past two Augusts, I’ve written about a Royals series against contending teams that came in front of big, loud crowds and wondered if that would be the high point of the season. It likely was in 2013. Last year, though, things got about a kazillion times better over the next two months.

I mention that because I can’t help but wonder if last night was as good as it will get for this year’s version of the Royals. The crowd wasn’t as big or boisterous as those crowds for the Red Sox and Giants series. It was a cool Wednesday night against Tampa, who are good, but not exactly a big draw, even with Chris Archer on the mound.

But the Royals were coming off a dramatic sweep of a double header on Tuesday, and won Wednesday with flair and mid-innings drama. At the end of the night, they were 16 games over .500 and 4.5 games up in first place. When you consider just that, it seems like a pretty great moment in a season that has been mostly very good since Opening Day.

Ahhh, but there is always a rub. And the rub last night was Alex Gordon going down with a fairly serious injury that will cost him, at minimum, a month of games, and likely multiple months.

I don’t know if Alex is the best player on the Royals. Lorenzo Cain can make an awfully good case for that over the past 12 months. And Eric Hosmer, despite his terrible slump, probably has more raw talent than Alex.

I don’t know if Alex is the most indispensable player on the Royals. He’s definitely in the conversation, but given his streaky bat at Jarrod Dyson’s defense, it feels like you can find a way to fill Alex’s talent void better than if Salvador Perez was to miss a month.

I don’t know if Alex is the clear leader of the team. Again, I think that’s a role he shares with Perez.

But if you think about all the ways that Alex contributes, about how he gives the team great at-bats even when he’s scuffling, about how anything hit to left field is likely an out, about how he shows up every day even when nicked up, I think he becomes the toughest guy to lose.

It’s not insignificant that he is likely the most popular player on the team, too. Losing him is a psychic blow to the fan base that has watched him go from brightest prospect in the game, to complete bust, through the process of totally overhauling his game, to becoming one of the most well-rounded and valuable players in the game.

Oh, and there’s the specter that, if this is a three-month injury, he may have played his final game for the Royals. Even with a nasty injury, he’s almost certainly priced himself out of the Royals budget. Unless he’s a way better guy than everyone thinks and willing to give up $4–5 million/year to stay in KC. And he’d be an idiot to do that.

The Royals are already fighting injuries and slumps all over the diamond. There’s always the hope, though, that the other injured guys will be back soon, and the guys who can’t hit their weight over the past month will get it turned around. Alex being out until the late part of the season, though? Man, that feels like almost too much to overcome.

Given the Royals place in the standings, and how many injuries, suspensions, and poor performances they’ve had to dodge this season, it’s kind of a miracle that they are still in the lead in the division and have one of the best records in baseball.

No, you know what it is? It’s a testament to Ned Yost and Dayton Moore and how they’ve managed and constructed this team.

Wow, things I never thought I would say for $400, Alex!

No one in the majors wanted Christ Young. He’s been the Royals best starting pitcher over the first half of the season. Joe Blanton may be turning back into a pumpkin, but he filled in nobly a couple nights, including the evening he out-dueled Felix Hernandez in Seattle. Kendrys Morales has been fantastic when everyone else thought his career was over.

Yes, Alex Rios has been a complete bust. And Omar Infante looks like a terrible signing with two-plus years left on his contract. But not everyone is perfect.

The Royals are in first place despite big, consistent holes in their lineup and three-fifths of their Opening Day rotation spending significant time on the DL.

Props to the guys who are running the team.

Now comes the real test. Can Dayton find someone to plug into Alex’s hole. The Royals already needed another bat badly, and were apparently looking (smartly) at adding one over going after another arm for the rotation. Now they need two bats.

The good news is Mike Moustakas should be back soon. The odds are that Eric Hosmer isn’t going to be a disaster at the plate the entire second half. Get Moose back and get Hosmer going, and that helps the offense a lot. But I think it’s going to take more than Ben Zobrist to give the Royals a chance to not only get into October, but keep it going deep into the playoffs. Be bold, Dayton!

The rest of the American League Central has been kind of awful this year. Everyone keeps saying the Twins are going to fall back to earth. But they haven’t yet and, honestly, feel a little like last year’s Royals. Detroit will likely spend some money and make an effort to get back in the race. Cleveland still has better starting pitching than anyone in the division, and will always be a threat even if they field about as well as my daughter’s softball team. And I can’t believe the White Sox are as bad as they’ve been through the first half.

In other words, the Royals are going to have to win this thing rather than coast through the second half assuming the rest of the division is garbage.

Losing Alex doesn’t kill that dream. But it sure as hell makes it a lot tougher.

Hot Sports Takes

May 8, 2015 /

Takes almost as hot as the weather here in central Indiana.[1]

A-Rod

Wow, the Yankees have made Alex Rodriguez a sympathetic figure, something that seemed impossible.

I love to hate A-Rod, but I also admire his comeback. It would have been easy after his last injury and suspension to just retire and disappear into the void. He could say goodbye to the media, to fans booing him at every at-bat, and to all the drama that has surrounded the last part of his career. I bet he could make a healthy sum if he wrote a book about his years in baseball, too.

But he sucked it up, worked hard to come back, showed up and not only won a spot in the Yankees lineup, but is likely their best player. The cynic will say he’s juicing, popping pills, or doing something else to fuel his hot start. And maybe he is. He certainly has a history of multiple offenses. But, like Barry Bonds, he was also a peerless player before he ever started putting outlawed substances into his body. Maybe this is one last burst of his pure athletic genius coming through.

For the Yankees to continue to grouse about his presence and to insist that they will not pay him the contractually-obligated bonus for passing Willie Mays on the all-time home run list is asinine. Right now, he’s the best story on one of the most surprising teams in the league. He’s driving attendance and the news cycle, for good reasons. He’s making people pay attention to the Yankees. Which is exactly what they wanted when they resigned him.

Shut the hell up and pay the man.

Steph Curry NBA MVP

I don’t know why I’m still surprised by things that Steph Curry does. He’s been amazing us for seven years now.

I think most of us expected him to, maybe, in the best possible case, be a spot shooter in the NBA. He was slight and didn’t appear to be a great athlete. Where Reggie Miller was 6’8’’, Curry checked in at just 6’3’’. No way does his effectiveness in college translate to the NBA, right?

He answered that question quickly, and has been getting better every season since. A perfect shot, that he needs just a millisecond to get off. Amazing dribbling. Astounding passing. When you put his skills with the other guys on the Golden State Warriors, you have one of the most entertaining teams to watch in the NBA.

Just as important, in a year when Kevin Durant was injured and surly, Steph gave us another completely likable NBA superstar. Unless he’s ripping your team’s heart out, of course.

Tom Brady

As I said when Deflategate first broke, whatever was done with the balls during the AFC championship game did not affect the outcome. The Patriots running roughshod over the Colts’ defensive line was as big as any passes Tom Brady completed that day.

I’m fascinated by the transition in the image of Brady, though. He began his career as the underdog hero, someone you could admire even as he was carving your team up. He grew into perhaps the most complete quarterback in the game, and one who always came up big in January.[2] Then he was a brand, or A Brand, complete with supermodel wife, obligatory appearances at ever big event, and cautiously guarded words any time a microphone was near.

Now, though, he’s turned into a first class villain. His petulant screaming at refs anytime he doesn’t like a call. His smugness on and off the field. And now, bending the rules to gain an advantage. I don’t think most people really care about whether the Patriots messed with the air pressure of their footballs. I do think a lot of people look at Brady, though, and think, “Why does he need to do that?”

So I used to admire Brady, and now I dislike him. And I used to hate A-Rod, but now I kind of like him.

What a world, what a world…

Late Breaking: ESPN Does Not Renew Bill Simmons’ Contract

Whoa! Their relationship had obviously been strained over the past couple years, especially surrounding Simmons’ vocal criticisms of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. But you figured they would find a way to make it work, right?

I rarely read Simmons’ columns anymore. I don’t watch movies or much TV, so his newer pop culture references are lost on me. And it got tiring reading through 5000 words that he had likely written before, just in slightly different form.

But the dude changed sports writing for the better. There are more voices now, is a more relaxed tone in general, and are better outlets for finding sports discussion. He (and Will Leitch when he started Deadspin) made sports writing fun and more like talking with your buddies over some beers than like reading the tired, old columnists who dominated most papers and national magazines. His early ESPN years were phenomenal. It was always exciting to see another one of his columns hit ESPN.com. Or see a link to the latest in your inbox from someone else who got to it first.

And while I overlooked his more recent writing, building Grantland was a fantastic accomplishment. There is no better source for quality sports writing – and pop culture writing – right now than Grantland. I hope it continues in the same spirit even without him as head.

Oh, and I bet he lands on his feet somewhere.

  1. Just missed setting a record high yesterday, and in the midst of the longest stretch of temperatures over 80 in May since 2001.  ↩
  2. Unlike Peyton Manning, for example.  ↩

Summer 2015 Cap

April 23, 2015 /

Lost in the early baseball season rush, I’ve forgotten to share something very important with you: my summer 2015 cap choice.

Frankly, I’m a little surprised I haven’t received angry emails demanding I reveal my pick.

Allow me to rectify.

I found myself in a bit of a quandary this year. Last year’s cap is still in decent shape. And there was a lot of good luck contained inside of it. If you don’t fuck with good luck in any sport, it’s baseball. Maybe I should just go with the ’14 hat a little longer.

I do love to buy a new hat, though. It seemed wrong to deprive myself of one of the simple pleasures of spring.

Which led to my other quandary: last year I wore a regular, replica Royals hat, an adjustable version of what the team wears on the field. I had not done that since at least high school, and likely middle school. And then the Royals not only break their 29-year playoff drought, but they get to game seven of the World Series. If I’m replacing the hat I wore during that run, should I still stick with the standard, royal blue, KC cap? You know, messing with a streak and all.

That seemed boring to me. If I’m buying a new cap, it needs to be different. After all, my spring tradition isn’t to buy a new version of the same hat I wore the year before, and the year before, and the year before… That’s something Yankees fans do.

So I ran off to the Rally House and began paging through their offerings. I am a bit picky in what I throw onto my head. First, I don’t do silly. Second, because my hat size changes by between 1/8 and 1/4 inch between haircuts, I can’t do fitted caps without trying them on in person. And while I don’t mind wearing something that is evocative of Kansas City in general but perhaps not the Royals specifically,[1] given their recent success, I would like the hat to be quickly identifiable as a Royals hat.[2]

After hours of careful consideration, I had five finalists. I poured over the details of each cap, making sure I was familiar with the brand, and thus fit. Was I sure I could wear that color for the next year? Did the back have the adjustment device that I get the best results from?

In the end, one winner was clear. I placed an order and it arrived, conveniently, on Opening Day. And it appears I ordered it just in time, because it is no longer available on the Rally House’s website. I like that is not the traditional royal blue, but still close enough to the Royals’ main color. I dig the old school KC. And yet the back is stamped with “Royals,” so it is clear that I’m supporting Kansas City’s current team.

Thus, I present my cap for the summer of 2015, and beyond.

Dope Ass Hat

All ya’ll can rest easier now.

  1. In the past I’ve worn a couple Kansas City Monarchs hats, a KC A’s hat, and a couple “fashion” Royals hats. One of those was a pretty cool, deep gray color with the KC logo in blue. That was a great hat. Then I wore it one day while kayaking with a friend in late July and ruined in by pouring gallons of sweat into it.  ↩
  2. I have a pretty fly 1960 Kansas City Athletics hat that I wear on occasion (It’s fitted, and I can only wear it late in my hair cut cycle). I love the way it looks, but since the Royals are good now, I don’t want people asking me “What team is that?” which happens pretty much every time I wear that cap.  ↩

Game Balls

April 22, 2015 /

I haven’t kept many mementos from my childhood sports days. There are a few stats sheets and participation patches hidden away in a box in the basement. But all my trophies were tossed out long ago. Nor are there any old uniforms or hats crammed into a cedar chest somewhere as reminders of my pre-high school sports glory days.

Among a group of six baseballs I have tucked into a drawer in our dresser, though, I do have two game balls that I saved from my YMCA/Little League days.[1]

One is dated June 24, 1981, a few days after I turned 10, with the notation “Cards 1st Win” inked onto it. I was catching that day, and in the last inning I took a throw from the outfield just before being absolutely drilled by a runner who was attempting to tie the game. I held on for the third out and, apparently, our first win of the year. I remember laying on the ground for several minutes after the collision, the wind having been knocked out of me, and gripping the ball as tightly as I could. I think my coach awarded it to me as much for my refusal to let it go as for making the play at the plate.

 

IMG 3722

The other ball is from three years later, June 4, 1984. This one reads “3 Great Catches. Won 25–8,” and is then signed by the rest of my team. I mostly played center field that year, and remember making one Lorenzo Cain-like catch in the game, running deep into left-center and backhanding a ball just before it hit the fence. I know I also made a catch running at full speed toward the infield and diving at the last second to collect a shallow pop. The third catch? Lost in time.[2] Clearly, given the final score, those catches were the difference between a win and a loss that day!

Why have I saved these balls for over 30 years when I’ve thrown away almost all other artifacts of my childhood sports career? I’m not really sure. Perhaps because of the power that a baseball holds over anyone that grows up loving the sport. There is something sacred about that leather-covered orb. Whether you catch a foul ball at a big league game, or are presented the game ball after your U–11 game, once you get ahold of a baseball you never want to let it go. It is a direct connection to George Brett and Nolan Ryan, Barry Bonds and Pedro Martinez, or Alex Gordon and Clayton Kershaw.

The game balls have rarely been moved in the seven or eight years since we purchased our dresser. I don’t think I’ve ever showed them to the girls, either. Probably out of fear that they’ll hunt them down and mess them up. They just sit there and take up space, pushed aside when I’m looking for the pill bottles the girls baby teeth are stored in, or looking for collar stays when I put on a dress shirt. But it seems wrong to ever throw them away.

There’s a too-much-about-me prologue to the real purpose of this post: C. earned her first-ever game ball last night; a first for all of the girls, actually.

Her softball season got off to a rough start last week. Her team, which is loaded with first-year players and first graders, got trounced 14–0 by a team with mostly experienced second graders. C. went hitless, as did most of her team, striking out in all three plate appearances.

Saturday, after her First Communion, we spent about 20 minutes outside hitting. It took almost five minutes for her to make contact, but eventually she was hitting line drives over my head.

Last night was game two, and it was a very different evening. They played a team that was more even to them in terms of age and experience. After a slow start, they strung together a bunch of hits in three-straight innings and got a 10–2 win.

C. struck out again in her first at bat.

In her second, she smacked a hit to the left side of the infield that gave her team the lead.[3] When she came back to the dugout between innings, she was fighting a losing battle to hide her proud grin.

Third time up, she got another infield single. “I can’t wait to hit again!” she told me while grabbing her mitt.

And in her final at bat, she lined a shot toward the shortstop that rolled to the outfield. “I LOVE hitting, Dad!”

All the girls were excited to get their first win. Their coach gathered them in the dugout to tell them how well they played and how proud he was of their improvement since their first game. Then he said he was giving the game ball to a player who had some really big hits, handing the ball to C. Her eyes bugged out and she had a silly, excited grin on her face.

Not going to lie. I had to take a little walk because there was dust or pollen or something in my eyes and I needed a minute.

Her teammates took turns signing the ball, which like her old man three decades ago, she held onto tightly as we walked back to the car. When we got home, she told me, “Dad, I want to play softball for a long time!” then she ran inside to show S. and her sisters. Of course, she said the same thing about being in Girl Scouts last year and now hates going to meetings. So we’ll see.

For now her ball is prominently displayed on her bedside table, and I’m sure she’ll show it to her buddy next door, with long explanations of how she earned it, at her first chance.

Maybe, in another 30 years, she’ll push it aside as she searches for a piece of jewelry or item of clothing in a dresser drawer of her own.

 

IMG 3720

  1. The other balls are: 1) A ball my step-dad gave me that has a bunch of very old players’ autographs. The most readable, and recognizable, signature is from Cardinals Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst. 2) Another is a ball the husband of an after-school babysitter brought me from when he worked in the bullpen at (then) Royals Stadium in 1981, signed by Rich Gale, Paul Splittorff, Ken Brett, and Dan Quisenberry. 3) A ball signed, to me, by Brooks Robinson that one of my sisters-in-law got when she met the Orioles Hall of Famer at a work event a few years back. Elsewhere in the house is a ball signed by Carlos Beltran and Jermaine Dye, and the two MLB foul balls I’ve collected over the years.  ↩
  2. Yes, I know it’s sad that I CLEARLY remember two catches I made in a Little League game 31 years ago. My athletic feats are few.  ↩
  3. Game Winning RBI!  ↩

R’s: Stuff And Nonsense

April 21, 2015 /

In the bad old days, I would think the Royals were cursed.

How else to explain getting off to a hot start – they’re currently tied for the second-best record in the bigs – yet still looking up at Detroit? The baseball gods hate the Royals, right?

But these aren’t the bad old days. This is the brave new world where every roster move Dayton Moore makes works out, every in-game decision that Ned Yost makes turns to gold, and the team gets clutch hits from the bottom of its lineup late in games to pull out wins.

The Royals, it seems, are actually good.

As much as I loved last October, I chalked a lot of it up to the flukey/luck-driven nature of the playoffs. Their pitching was solid, they got some huge hits in important moments, and caught everything that was hit. For 11 of 15 games, they played damn near perfect baseball, or at least in each game’s biggest moments they were perfect. In July, that’s just a nice little run. In October, that gets you to game seven of the World Series.

As I said in my preseason picks, I did not expect that luck to carry over. And I think I was right. Sure, the Royals have caught some breaks here-and-there in the first few weeks of the season. But they’re mostly winning because they are playing with a whole different level of confidence. Getting to the final game of the baseball season seems to have transformed the roster. Now they expect to find a way to work a walk when they need a base runner. They expect someone to come up with that key hit to bring the tying/go-ahead runs home. They play with a looseness that comes from being absolutely certain that if they can squeeze out one more run than the opponent sometime in the last three innings, a win is guaranteed.

What has impressed me most is how the off-season acquisitions have begun the year. Yes, we’re still in the extreme, small-sample-sized days of April. So we shouldn’t get too excited. But Edinson Volquez has been flat-out awesome through his first three starts, pitching better than he’s ever pitched in his career. Kendrys Morales looks completely rejuvenated. And Alex Rios seemed locked-in before he took a fastball to the hand that landed him on the DL.

Again, it’s early. Rios is already hurt and Volquez and Morales are both over 30 and more liable to break down than they were in their younger days. For now, though, I’m going to love every Volquez change up that makes a batter look silly, and every Morales double in the last third of the game that gets the winning run home.

Right now, the Royals are an absolute joy to watch. I’m not going to take a second of it for granted.

For the most part, I thought what went on at the K over the weekend was nonsense. I’m not big into retaliation in baseball. I think there’s generally too much at risk to throw at a guy, especially if it’s your #1 starter or a key member of your bullpen doing the throwing. Winning is the best payback, not putting a fastball in somebody’s ribs. (Or sailing one behind their head.)

That said, I understood the Royals’ frustration. They had been plunked with impunity through the first two weeks of the season. Rios is on the DL because a rookie couldn’t control his fastball. So when Brett Lawrie made an awful slide Friday night that Alcides Escobar was lucky to only limp away from, I knew it was going to be a long weekend.

Which is fine. But the way Yordano Ventura and Kelvin Herrera went about “paying back” Lawrie was all wrong. Ventura didn’t need to take steps toward Lawrie and yap at him. Herrera didn’t need to throw behind his head, or then point at his own head, no matter what message he was trying to send with the latter gesture. You have to be smarter than both of them were.

The Royals are built around young guys who are new to winning and play emotionally. That is mostly a good thing. But they need to learn to contain that emotion. Teams are going to start goading them into future altercations, knowing that umpires and the league office will not give the Royals much leash when things get testy. If it’s not already a distraction, it soon will be.

I kind of hate that I agree with long-time Royals broadcaster, and general grump about most things, Denny Matthews. But he was right when he said the Royals need to calm down, turn the other cheek, and just beat people. Let the scoreboard do the talking.

Oh, and that title? From an old Split Enz song. Here’s a version from 2001 featuring Eddie Vedder and Tim Finn.

Baseball Links

April 6, 2015 /

As promised, a whole mess of baseball links in honor of Opening Day.

Let’s go to the oldest piece first. The Deadspin Stacks reprinted Robert Ward’s legendary article about Reggie Jackson published in Sport[1] magazine in 1977. It, in many ways, defined how Reggie was perceived for the rest of his career. Not unfairly, I should add. Be sure to read the epilogue Ward added for the reprint.

The Day A Shit-Talking Reggie Jackson Tore Apart The Yankees

Daniel Norris could not be more different than Reggie Jackson. Forget about Reggie, he’s in dramatic opposition to the bulk of young guys who have big fat contracts and limitless futures. The Blue Jays rookie spent spring training living in an old Volkswagen camper he parked in a Wal-Mart parking lot. And that’s just the beginning of his unorthodox way of living life.

The Man In The Van

Joe Posnanski with a pretty great profile of Bobby Bragan, a man who moved past history and prejudice to embrace Jackie Robinson when he broke the color line.

A Baseball Story

C. is playing softball this year. A few weeks back we bought her a bat, tee, and glove. Since my glove disappeared sometime in the past 20 years, I also bought the third baseball glove of my life. I just got a cheap, discontinued Rawlings model on Amazon. I figured I’m just going to be playing catch with the girls, or fielding their hits, so there was no need to spend a ton of money.

This article appeared at the perfect time, as I’ve been going through all the rituals of breaking my mitt in. Like so much about baseball, the simple act of making leather supple can take on spiritual elements.

To Break In Their Gloves, Yankees Dunk, Tenderize and Lather Up

Speaking of baseball ritual, here is yet another nice accounting of how baseball helped bridge the gap between father and son.

Saying ‘I Love You’ With Baseball

Ten baseball books every fan should read. Sadly I’ve read seven, which means there isn’t much new here for me.

An interesting history of how baseball caps became the most common headwear for men off the diamond.

The Common Man’s Crown

Finally, Will Leitch’s 125 predictions for the season.

  1. I loved Sport magazine. And Inside Sports. I often wasted a library pick on the current issue of one or the other back in 4th and 5th grades. Even though I usually had them read, front-to-back, before the school day was over.  ↩

Opening Day!

April 6, 2015 /

Today, we wake up. Baseball begins again in Kansas City, which means we stop dreaming about the unbelievable run of last October, wondering if Alex Gordon could have scored or waking from nightmares about Madison Bumgarner.

Now, all of that is truly part of the past. We have new games to watch!

Which is kind of a shame. Because I just don’t think last year was the beginning of some great run for the Royals.

Maybe Eric Hosmer is ready to play MVP-caliber ball for six months.
Maybe Mike Moustakas figured something out last fall and can finally turn into a guy who can hit 25–30 home runs a year and get on base about 30 percent of the time.
Perhaps last year was not an aberration at the plate for both Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar and they can both repeat their ’14 numbers. Maybe Yordano Ventura is ready to be a big league #1 for 200+ innings.
Maybe Danny Duffy is ready to be a big league #2 for 200+ innings.
Maybe Edinson Volquez, Jason Vargas, and Jeremy Guthrie can continue to fool batters.
Maybe Herrera-Davis-Holland will repeat as the most deadly bullpen trio in MLB history. Maybe Salvador Perez can stay healthy.
Maybe every string that Ned Yost pulls will continue to be the right string. Or when he pulls the wrong string, it somehow works out like it did in October.

Here’s the problem, though. It will take all of that to happen, and probably more, to compete in what should be a much tougher AL Central this year, or fight what should be a deeper pool of teams for a Wild Card slot this year. I can see two, three, maybe four of those things happening. But not all of them.

Still, I’m picking with my heart rather than my brain. I say the Royals win 83, 84 games and finish just on the fringe of both the division and Wild Card races.

My brain says a third-straight season with 81+ wins is going to be tough, though.

But it’s Opening Day! The grass is greening up. There will be baseball on the TV, radio, and our i-devices for the next seven months. And the Royals, for today at least, are no longer a laughingstock and we can dream that all the magic of last October will continue into this season.

Worth noting, I’ll be celebrating Opening Day by covering a high school softball game the begins at roughly the same time the Royals game starts. Would it be wrong for me to show up about three hours early with a grill and a cooler and look for someone to play catch with?

The two leagues have very different feels. In the American League, there does not seem to be a dominant team, and in each division there are at least two completely reasonable choices for a champ. Then, when the playoffs roll around, there will be a bunch of evenly matched, but flawed teams, battling for the pennant.

In the National League, however, there seem to be clear leaders in each division, with two of those poised to put up monster years if they can stay healthy.

So, here come the patented, half-assed, likely totally wrong predictions.

AL East: Red Sox

Every preview I read throws out the theory that the Red Sox roster will look very different in August. Cole Hamels, come on down? I suppose I’ll but into that idea as well. Toronto will hold the lead at the All-Star Break, but the Sox get hot late to nudge out the Blue Jays.

AL Central: White Sox

I could talk myself into any of three teams here. The White Sox seem too young, and too recently put together. But I love most of the moves they made in the off season. I think the Indians have a real shot to win, but I also think they have the least room for error, and will likely slip up or suffer a major injury or two that wrecks their chances. The Tigers will look great on the nights when everything clicks, but are too old and fragile to continue their dominance of the division.

AL West: Athletics

Say what you want about Billy Beane, but he always keeps it interesting. He made some huge moves last year to build a team that would finally win him a pennant, only to cough up a huge division lead and then blow two late leads in the Wild Card game. So he completely blew the team up again. And, somehow, they’re going to be really, really good again.

Wildcards: Blue Jays, Mariners

Not sure I buy all the Mariners hype, and it was hard for me to pick them over Cleveland. But I bet they stay healthier than the Indians. And they have the luxury of playing the Rangers and Astros often.

Playoffs

Mariners over Blue Jays. King Felix is dominant.
Mariners over Athletics. Starting pitching is the difference. And Billy Beane’s shit still doesn’t work in the playoffs.
Red Sox over White Sox. One last hurrah for Papi and Pedroia.
Red Sox over Mariners. Hamels out-duels Felix in an epic game seven.

NL East: Nationals

Potential juggernaut No. 1.

NL Central: Cardinals

Will survive the toughest division in the majors.

NL West: Dodgers

Potential juggernaut No. 2.

Wildcards: Pirates, Mets

Playoffs

Mets over Pirates. Matt Harvey breaks Pittsburgh’s heart again.
Nationals over Mets. Harvey not enough.
Dodgers over Cardinals. Kershaw’s shit works this year.
Nationals over Dodgers. Bryce Harper in the MVP in an epic series.

World Series: Nationals over Red Sox

The team of the ‘00s falls to the team poised to become the team of the next decade.

R’s: Wrapping It All Up

November 4, 2014 /

I’m glad I was not alone. I heard from many of my friends who are Royals fans last Thursday. The common theme was we all felt like garbage following game seven of the World Series.

I was able to shake off the funk by late in the day, as I began to see the big picture again.

It sucks that one game can wipe out many of the good feelings built up in the 14 (or 176) games that came before it. Usually I’m lamenting this focus on the last game of the year in March. I wasn’t sure how to handle it in October. I hate that that’s how we judge sports these days. You’re only as good as the last game of your season. Good, even great teams, are shat upon if they have a bad night at the wrong time of the schedule.

But I got over it. Mostly. It’s easier now to look back on what was a fabulous run and enjoy it for what it was. Unexpected. Unexplained. Exhilarating. Amazing. Sure, they came up a little short. That run, though, was what we had craved since 1985. And we got it, disappointing end or not.

I don’t know that I can write much different from what I’ve already written. So I’ll clear out the notebook with some things I jotted down during the last glorious month of baseball.

How did this run affect me? Well there’s one very clear way of measuring it. I gained at least five pounds since the playoffs began. I’m generally a one beer a night guy. With that beer often comes a handful of pretzels or mixed nuts.

For the last month, though? Most nights were 3–5 beer nights. And I don’t drink watered down “lite” beers. Theses are full-bodied, full-caloried craft beers. I also kept the can of nuts or jar of pretzels close and worked through them as the game progressed.

What’s frightening is I was quite active through most of the month. I was taking at least one long bike ride each week.[1] I also began running on a local cross country course, something I had never done before. Throw in a couple strength training sessions each week and I was certainly burning calories. I hate to see what the scales would show had I not been working out.

The morning after game seven I was explaining to S. what happened in the bottom of the ninth. I used the term “Little League home run,” which she quickly shouted back at me. “LITTLE LEAGUE HOME RUN?!?!” I laughed and broke it down for her.

That reminded me of one of our favorite moments from when we were dating. We were watching a Royals game at her apartment in Kansas City. Or, rather, I was watching a Royals game and she was probably doing something productive next to me. Joe Randa hit a shot down the line at Fenway and I shouted “STAY FAIR!”

S. looked at me and asked, “STATE FAIR?!?! What the hell does that mean?”

She also was confused when I yelled “WOLF!” at the TV during basketball games.

Little League home run definitely goes on that list.

Credit where due. I’ve been one of the knuckleheads who has slagged Ned Yost often over the past few years, when his decisions seemed to be holding back a team that was ready to contend. He wasn’t perfect in the playoffs; few managers are. But I think he did a very solid job during October. Sure, a move here or there got questioned, but for the most part he was on point. He seemed to enjoy the moment, which I think rubbed off on his players.

The concept of chemistry is a tough one. Good teams always have good chemistry, right? To whatever extent a manager can affect a team’s chemistry, I think Ned helped the Royals in this post season. And while perhaps he should have pulled Jeremy Guthrie an inning earlier, Ned did not lose game seven for the Royals.

I don’t know that I had a favorite Royal when the season began. I wanted it to be Eric Hosmer, but by August I was on the verge of loathing him. It was probably Alex Gordon, but Alex’s streakiness at the plate drives me bonkers.

I know I’m not the only one who fell in love with Lorenzo Cain through the playoffs. He was the team’s best, and most consistent hitter in the regular season. He played great defense from April through September. And he played hard.

Then he took all that to a completely different level in October. He was a freaking man all month long. He made a career’s worth of highlight catches. He could somehow be both aggressive at the plate and work long at-bats. He seemed to always find a way to slash the ball into an open spot in the defense.

That dude played his ass off on the playoffs. I hope it was not an aberration but rather a sign of things to come for him.

I thought back, after the World Series ended, to how this season began. We were in Kansas City over St. P’s spring break. When the Royals and Tigers began things in Detroit, we were eating lunch at Oklahoma Joe’s. Somehow I ended up sitting facing away from every TV, so I my head shot around each time there was a roar of cheering for a Royals hit.

As the game progressed, we took the girls to a few sites around the city and I followed the game on my phone. During the game, I bought the Royals hat I’ve been wearing all season. We were just pulling into the parking lot at our hotel when Wade Davis and Greg Holland combined to blow the game. It wasn’t a promising start. Amazing how far they all came from that first game.

Finally, among all the memories of the last month, one of my favorites will always be how I shared this with friends. The Royals run got me to check, and post to, Facebook more than once a week. During most games I was frantically sending iMessages back-and-forth with people in Kansas City, people who were often inside the stadium.

I became a much bigger Royals fan the summer we moved to Indianapolis. It wasn’t just their crazy run that put them in first place for two months of that summer, although that made them interesting. Rather it was how the Royals allowed me to stay in touch with a wide swath of friends. My KU friends and I would always have the Jayhawks to send emails and texts about. But the Royals brought in friends who went to other schools, or who had no strong college affiliations. Since I’m not a Chiefs fan, the Royals were my best way of showing my hometown pride as well.

Since we moved I’ve been back for one KU basketball game, and that was in Kansas City. I’ve been to one KU football game. But I’ve been back for close to 20 Royals games in 11 years. That said, it’s been two years since I’ve been back to the K. That needs to change next season.

Anyway, it just made all this extra special that I was able to go through this run with so many friends back in KC. I’m jealous of everyone who got to go to games, but thankful for them sharing their experience with me.

  1. The longest was 19.5 miles.  ↩
« Older posts Newer posts »

Archives

© 2025 D's Notebook

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑