Singer looked nasty based on the highlights. Consistency will be the key….but when he is on he is certainly one of the better starters. Hopefully he learned something here after 3 years. They need to back off Snider for a little bit here in high leverage. He’s a good story but also pushing close to a 5 era now. Certainly it would help everyone if they could score more runs. But that doesn’t really look to be in the cards.
It’s easy to forget because the start has been so bad and the product has been near un-entertaining but some good things will come from this year. Just as the Lopez story came from last year. Whose rebuild is going better…..DET or KC??? I still see Chicago pulling away in this division. But maybe the Twins will keep it interesting.
Absolutely. If a team is willing to find the value in any sort of season, it can be found.
Man, those rebuilds. It’s hard to say. Mize being hurt makes that tough to gauge. Skubal has been better than any young Royals pitcher to this point and Torkelson and Witt have had some similar struggles. I think they’re honestly pretty close.
You have already spoke about Santana and Ohearn, so I won't waste any more words on those two. Vance Wilson is quickly becoming another coaching casualty possibility. The big thing yesterday, I thought from game 1, in the fifth inning was the fact the pitching coach or manager could have helped Heasley would have not pitched to Abreu. They had first base open at the time. Hus was screaming for it on the telecast. That move might have made line much better. It was certainly encouraging to see Singer look that good.
Yeah, that’s a good point on Heasley and it lends itself to the question again of what their goals are. If it’s to develop, then him facing Abreu, who has not been good this year, and not worrying about the results is fine. If it’s to win, that’s a big mistake.
Preach it Paul. Among a game of many puzzling moves; that was the most puzzling. First base open, put him on and protect the young pitcher. Big difference b/t down 0-3 and 0-1.
Among the other things that were puzzling:
1 - Sending Dozier - Lesk you covered this
2 - How about Heasley going to a high heater in any of the 10 or so pitches that Pollock kept fouling off when he was up 0-2??? Specifically, nice heater about 4" above the zone to see if you get a chase? You're up 0-2 and have balls to burn if Pollock gets selective - Who is calling the pitches for crying out loud?
3 - Did we REALLY pinch hit Santana instead of Michael a Taylor for Salvy? Mark that up as another baseball malpractice charge please!
As for Heasley; am I the only one who thinks "Jon Kruk's kid" when I see him? Performance-wise I don't know what to think. He got a way with a TON and walked a LOT, but for the most part he gets outs when he needs them. Maybe he's got some deception to his delivery, hell I don't know. I'm gonna reserve judgment at this point, just not on the appearance lol.
Game 2 was nice! As well, it was to see Singer embrace the 'change'. Let's hope the kid as learned his lesson b/c we need another legit starter in this rotation. I'm gonna keep my optimism and go with Matheny that that's a start that can change the trajectory of the kid's career.
So I've got some thoughts that I probably would have included if Singer's start wasn't worthy of so much digital ink.
Regarding throwing a high fastball. I think he tried to do it twice. Both on the fourth pitch and the sixth pitch of the at bat. Melendez set up high on both pitches and both pitches just sat in the middle of the plate. My guess is that Melendez saw it, tried it again and saw it didn't work and then pushed breaking ball.
And on the pinch hit, yeah, I wondered that too, especially with Taylor's patience lately. But for a pitcher struggling with control, I wonder if they thought the 18%+ walk rate would be more likely to work a bases loaded walk. I'd have still gone with Taylor, but I'm thinking that might be the rationale. And if it's not, well, I'd like to pretend that it is because I'm just so tired of feeling like they're out there working blind.
Appreciate those thoughts. On high fastball, I didn't think he could possibly miss by that much on a fastball if he really asks for it 6" high, but what you said did cross my mind.
As for the pinch hit; agreed, but that's what makes it baseball malpractice - I mean Santana or MaT who, as you pointed out either yesterday or the day prior is on a tear. That's a no-brainer to me.
And since "change" is in the air with Singer and Alec, how about this compromise: Okay, okay, okay, we'll agree to keep O'hearn to protect whatever info/pics/what have you he has on someone in the front office. BUT, in return we ask for the following: 1 - He ONLY be allowed to pinch hit - NEVER START and 2 - Carlos DFA's and Vinnie to the bigs.
If we can't have it all, a little compromise can go a long way I say!
I admired Santana so much when he was destroying us, now I groan literally every he comes up. Yesterday I was yelling at the TV when he came in to pinch hit with the bases loaded.
I think anyone who can give a performance like that has earned as many starts as he continues to use all three pitches. They're not all going to be amazing like last night, but he needs to do the obvious to remain successful.
Apparently the Royals finally convinced Singer to develop a third pitch. How a kid starts for his high school team - let alone a major college and then four seasons in a major league organization - with only two pitches is baffling. Bubic finally developed a third pitch this year and Kowar is still in Omaha trying to learn one.
Everyone knows he needed to develop a third pitch. Why? He has two pitches, a good tailing two seam fastball at 96 and a good slider that obviously breaks the opposite direction as the FB and is considerably slower at 87 or so. What is the avg difference between a FB and a slider. Seems like 4-5 is more common.. Almost as much slower as a change up is to a fastball... as a hitter, I'd think it would be easy to tell the difference between the two. Slower- slider. Breaks right, two seamer. Even tho both are quality MLB pitches, all you had to do was identify early and sit on a mistake. His change up last night was essentially the same velo as his slider, but it tails like the two seamer. Its a third pitch that has similarities to both of the other pitches but important differences to the both also, so it becomes much harder as a hitter to quickly pick up the pitch type.
It was important that he had the kind of game he did last night so he he see the success. Tbh, other than not throwing the change down the middle, many of the 17 or whatever that he threw last night weren't exactly great changeups. It was thrown well enough to prove to him that it can be effective tho. I think Singer has a high floor. He has two above average pitches already. If he was your 5th starter the last two years.... he hasn't been exactly terrible with just the two pitches. If he can achieve some mastery of his change, idk maybe he's a 2nd or a 3rd starter. Maybe with 4 good starters we can actually start to win some games. Certainly more hopeful than depending on Carlos and Ryan to turn it all around.
Singer looked nasty based on the highlights. Consistency will be the key….but when he is on he is certainly one of the better starters. Hopefully he learned something here after 3 years. They need to back off Snider for a little bit here in high leverage. He’s a good story but also pushing close to a 5 era now. Certainly it would help everyone if they could score more runs. But that doesn’t really look to be in the cards.
It’s absolutely the key. He’s looked great before, albeit not with the changeup. He needs to do it again. And again. And again.
It’s easy to forget because the start has been so bad and the product has been near un-entertaining but some good things will come from this year. Just as the Lopez story came from last year. Whose rebuild is going better…..DET or KC??? I still see Chicago pulling away in this division. But maybe the Twins will keep it interesting.
Absolutely. If a team is willing to find the value in any sort of season, it can be found.
Man, those rebuilds. It’s hard to say. Mize being hurt makes that tough to gauge. Skubal has been better than any young Royals pitcher to this point and Torkelson and Witt have had some similar struggles. I think they’re honestly pretty close.
You have already spoke about Santana and Ohearn, so I won't waste any more words on those two. Vance Wilson is quickly becoming another coaching casualty possibility. The big thing yesterday, I thought from game 1, in the fifth inning was the fact the pitching coach or manager could have helped Heasley would have not pitched to Abreu. They had first base open at the time. Hus was screaming for it on the telecast. That move might have made line much better. It was certainly encouraging to see Singer look that good.
Yeah, that’s a good point on Heasley and it lends itself to the question again of what their goals are. If it’s to develop, then him facing Abreu, who has not been good this year, and not worrying about the results is fine. If it’s to win, that’s a big mistake.
Preach it Paul. Among a game of many puzzling moves; that was the most puzzling. First base open, put him on and protect the young pitcher. Big difference b/t down 0-3 and 0-1.
Among the other things that were puzzling:
1 - Sending Dozier - Lesk you covered this
2 - How about Heasley going to a high heater in any of the 10 or so pitches that Pollock kept fouling off when he was up 0-2??? Specifically, nice heater about 4" above the zone to see if you get a chase? You're up 0-2 and have balls to burn if Pollock gets selective - Who is calling the pitches for crying out loud?
3 - Did we REALLY pinch hit Santana instead of Michael a Taylor for Salvy? Mark that up as another baseball malpractice charge please!
As for Heasley; am I the only one who thinks "Jon Kruk's kid" when I see him? Performance-wise I don't know what to think. He got a way with a TON and walked a LOT, but for the most part he gets outs when he needs them. Maybe he's got some deception to his delivery, hell I don't know. I'm gonna reserve judgment at this point, just not on the appearance lol.
Game 2 was nice! As well, it was to see Singer embrace the 'change'. Let's hope the kid as learned his lesson b/c we need another legit starter in this rotation. I'm gonna keep my optimism and go with Matheny that that's a start that can change the trajectory of the kid's career.
So I've got some thoughts that I probably would have included if Singer's start wasn't worthy of so much digital ink.
Regarding throwing a high fastball. I think he tried to do it twice. Both on the fourth pitch and the sixth pitch of the at bat. Melendez set up high on both pitches and both pitches just sat in the middle of the plate. My guess is that Melendez saw it, tried it again and saw it didn't work and then pushed breaking ball.
And on the pinch hit, yeah, I wondered that too, especially with Taylor's patience lately. But for a pitcher struggling with control, I wonder if they thought the 18%+ walk rate would be more likely to work a bases loaded walk. I'd have still gone with Taylor, but I'm thinking that might be the rationale. And if it's not, well, I'd like to pretend that it is because I'm just so tired of feeling like they're out there working blind.
Appreciate those thoughts. On high fastball, I didn't think he could possibly miss by that much on a fastball if he really asks for it 6" high, but what you said did cross my mind.
As for the pinch hit; agreed, but that's what makes it baseball malpractice - I mean Santana or MaT who, as you pointed out either yesterday or the day prior is on a tear. That's a no-brainer to me.
Melendez was set up at the top of the zone to slightly above it and Heasley left a couple real fat ones instead. Like I said, just speculating there.
We don't score any runs but I can remember like 10 guys thrown out at the plate.
haha, seems like 20
Hey now, it's only seven. In 35 games. That's just a cool pace of 32 for the year.
Wow, sure feels like a whole lot more. Feels like 7 just on the contact play alone.
Surprisingly they've only made 11 outs on the bases. But seven at home is...woof.
And since "change" is in the air with Singer and Alec, how about this compromise: Okay, okay, okay, we'll agree to keep O'hearn to protect whatever info/pics/what have you he has on someone in the front office. BUT, in return we ask for the following: 1 - He ONLY be allowed to pinch hit - NEVER START and 2 - Carlos DFA's and Vinnie to the bigs.
If we can't have it all, a little compromise can go a long way I say!
Haha, I sort of like it. I hate keeping the guy at all, but I'll take it.
Last night, I tried to guess who caught the doubleheader all those years ago. Mike Macfarlane? Tim Spehr? Sal Fasano? Brent Mayne? Pat Borders?
Henry Mercedes never even crossed my mind.
It is such a perfect trivia answer that I never want to see any trivia ever again where the answer is NOT Henry Mercedes.
WE WON A BASEBALL GAME!
Singer has earned himself AT LEAST two more starts based on his performance, and man do we need some stable starting pitching right now.
Moore a couple days ago: There are times it's unacceptable to strike out.
Royals: Like with the bases loaded and nobody out?
Royals: Or like with the bases loaded and one out?
*headdesk*
and O'Hearn and Santana the 4 and 5 spots for the rest of the year I'm sure...
I admired Santana so much when he was destroying us, now I groan literally every he comes up. Yesterday I was yelling at the TV when he came in to pinch hit with the bases loaded.
I think anyone who can give a performance like that has earned as many starts as he continues to use all three pitches. They're not all going to be amazing like last night, but he needs to do the obvious to remain successful.
Apparently the Royals finally convinced Singer to develop a third pitch. How a kid starts for his high school team - let alone a major college and then four seasons in a major league organization - with only two pitches is baffling. Bubic finally developed a third pitch this year and Kowar is still in Omaha trying to learn one.
Some thoughts on Singer.....
Everyone knows he needed to develop a third pitch. Why? He has two pitches, a good tailing two seam fastball at 96 and a good slider that obviously breaks the opposite direction as the FB and is considerably slower at 87 or so. What is the avg difference between a FB and a slider. Seems like 4-5 is more common.. Almost as much slower as a change up is to a fastball... as a hitter, I'd think it would be easy to tell the difference between the two. Slower- slider. Breaks right, two seamer. Even tho both are quality MLB pitches, all you had to do was identify early and sit on a mistake. His change up last night was essentially the same velo as his slider, but it tails like the two seamer. Its a third pitch that has similarities to both of the other pitches but important differences to the both also, so it becomes much harder as a hitter to quickly pick up the pitch type.
It was important that he had the kind of game he did last night so he he see the success. Tbh, other than not throwing the change down the middle, many of the 17 or whatever that he threw last night weren't exactly great changeups. It was thrown well enough to prove to him that it can be effective tho. I think Singer has a high floor. He has two above average pitches already. If he was your 5th starter the last two years.... he hasn't been exactly terrible with just the two pitches. If he can achieve some mastery of his change, idk maybe he's a 2nd or a 3rd starter. Maybe with 4 good starters we can actually start to win some games. Certainly more hopeful than depending on Carlos and Ryan to turn it all around.