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Every single Royal pitcher without exception seems to be throwing at the top of there (recent) historical velocity range, whether its Wade Davis at 95, Hernandez at 100, Covid afflicted Staumont at 100, Duffy at 94, Keller at 97, and on down the list. Minor threw some FBs at 94.... Pitchers in general are stronger right now perhaps because they threw so few innings last year. We will have to see if that translates into more injuries later in the year? What do you think could be wrong with Keller? Avoiding the slider sounds like elbow issues but hard to figure throwing the fastball at 97 when you're elbow doesn't feel right. I thought he stopped throwing sliders after hanging them on 2 strike counts in the first.

On a separate note, Salvy is worse than ever at framing pitches. He's snatching balls at the edge of the zone way too far back into the zone and he's not getting any borderline Ks called. Salvy at DH with Soler in RF against LHP sometimes wouldn't hurt my feelings. Rusty Kurtz seems to have helped Soler's defensive prowess some.

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A lot of pitchers with elbow issues actually see their velocity tick up before they finally succumb to the injury, so the velocity increase for him could actually be a precursor to an injury. It may not, but pushing him back a day to face a better offense is concerning when I was already having those concerns.

As for Salvy, for the second straight year (obviously a minuscule sample, he rates well in framing metrics when he never had before, so the eye test for you here isn't matching the numbers. Yesterday was rough, but the umpiring was also pretty awful.

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And just when I've been pining for DD to be trade bait he goes out and looks like the Ace lol. Man, you got to love this game!

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Random question, I’ve been super busy with t-ball and softball, but what happened to Ervin Santana? I checked RR and MLBTR and couldn’t find a transaction regarding him. Anyone know?

Ohh yeah, good job Duffster!

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He's on the taxi squad. He didn't get added to the 40-man, but he's still with the organization. I imagine he'll be getting his shot at some point.

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Okay I figured that is where they might have stashed him. One more question, who all is on the taxi squad?

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For this road trip, it's Ervin Santana, Nick Dini, Kelvin Gutierrez, Erick Mejia and Brad Brach.

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Thanks again. I’ve been at the lake, then multiple tball and softball practices so I’m falling behind with the transactions. Finally got to watch the first 4 innings yesterday before it was time for practice.

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Totally get it!

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