I'm already getting tired of reading and hearing that "Pitcher X pitched well in a loss." I suppose it's better than "he pitched horribly in a loss" but somehow that doesn't make me feel any better.
The Twins' gift of 11 free baserunners in the first 16 innings of the series failed to persuade the Royals that it was okay to actually score a run except for on a Sunday. That's bad. Like, really really bad.
The offense was absolutely the problem this weekend, which is both surprising and I don't think *that* surprising given that we knew they'd be streaky in some ways. I just didn't expect them to start 0 for 19 with RISP. It'll be interesting to see how they rebound or if they rebound. The sequencing sucks, but if it's just a three-game sweep that would have hardly been noticed later in the year, it'll be easy to move on.
I'm encouraged though. To me the defense is the biggest problem. Hitting and Pitching both seem improved (results notwithstanding). I'm also a bit disappointed though. Just was so excited for baseball season that it's a bit of a bummer to start it off this way. Still, there's a game tonight.
Yeah, it was a massive bummer to start off like that and probably is going to keep away people for awhile now unless they turn it around super quick. But that's the beauty of baseball, right? There'll be seven more games before I write another one of these weekends in review. Who's to say they can't be 7-3 then? I mean, me, I'll say that, but it's at least possible.
I agree that it's "only been 3 games" but it's just SO familiar for us to keep seeing this way of losing after many years of the same type of loses to begin the season.
Have the Royals traded someone like the Red Sox did with Ruth, that there's a curse on them? Asking for a friend!
It is super familiar and it's a big reason why it's easy to believe what we saw. I'm not even saying it won't be a disaster season, but I think there were some good signs at least.
Great recap of the weekend that was. When the game reached the 8th inning on Saturday, Denny mentioned repeatedly that hitters were ‘swinging at a memory’ due to the shadows, a sliver of sunlight, and a glare off of the hitters’ backdrop. Both teams had to deal with it, and both staffs threw almost exclusively fastballs. Ain’t no way to adjust to that. That notwithstanding, it was a serious deflation of my rally hat. And once Joey Gallo had himself a day late in the game Sunday, that rally hat had pfffttt-d right out the window. Bring on those Jays, hopefully their stay in Missouri can continue a miserable road trip!
Thanks, Tom! I was at the game on Saturday and honestly, I lose the ball when it passes through that sliver of sun. That was rough and both sides definitely took advantage. Hopefully it's a better week ahead now that they're on a routine.
3 games don’t mean much…but man the royals have a way of letting the air out of a season early don’t they? It’s amazing really. I think this was just a smack in the face back to reality. Nothing I saw changes any opinions about what I thought going into the year really. I do think the starting rotation will be a big problem. Greinke and Lyles got out of it…but both could have had a much worse line. I just think the twins are a better team and it showed this weekend. The Royals have a ways to go yet. Plenty of promise and things to keep tabs on…..But maybe from 75 I’m more like 73 now. Lol.
I thought Greinke looked better than Lyles, but I don't think he looked great by any stretch. Keller, to me, showed the most upside of the three, which shouldn't be any surprise given age and all that, but still, it was nice to see some of the nasty movement he gets. But, that said, I'm actually a bit more encouraged by the rotation because Greinke actually got some whiffs, which surprised me. I think he's in for a regression, but maybe it won't be quite as crazy. If Keller can be solid enough and Singer can keep up what he did last year and *someone* steps up, there's the makings of some quality and more than I expected.
For me, the offense obviously has work to do, but the indicators were good. Nobody wants to hear it and I 100% get it because, man, 4 runs sucks. But if they have series like that again, they're probably scoring a lot more. But you are absolutely right. The air is just gone now. They need like a 12-2 stretch just to get people back and that's a bad place to be after one weekend. They can't just get to 4-4 and then dip. We'll see, I guess. I mean I'll be here. I'm sure you will be too. But for the rest? They need to bounce back in a big way.
I want Coleman to be the guy. And he has a TON of time to figure it out and he will. But man, he doesn’t have it right now and it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to send a message that results matter here if he doesn’t turn it around in the next week or so.
Hitters look a little too aggressive, but the pitching looks better. The bats will come around. I’m still drinking the koolaid! All the little Billy Buzzkills need to lighten up and quit writing them off already.
It seems like they've been aggressive at the wrong times because they are third in baseball in walk rate. Keep doing what they're doing and I'll bet they score a fair amount of runs.
I have already gone from optimist to pessimist. Yes Isbel looked pretty good, but shouldn't he have made a throw home after that short sac fly in second game? Salvy was ready for it and maybe that would have changed momentum a bit. And Keller? I am surprised you are happy with that, I am ok with him getting gassed by 5th, but How many times did he nearly take someones head off? think he got lucky those first 4. I also think they will be lucky to split series with Toronto.
That being said the optimist in me believes they will get some offense rolling and wins on the road. I hope a lot of the poor offense has been opening day jitters by the yunguns. Yesterday Piccolo said he was surprised how many guys admitted to jitters. Also wondering if Vinnie is in his head too much, maybe he got tired of playing the fun guy at the wbc - he seems much more serious now (which isn't a bad thing neccesarily). Also have to give a surprising nod to pitching, glad lyles and yarbs did what we hoped they would do. Maybe we can just chalk up the good and the bad to experience.
Hope Singer and the boys get me thinking playoffs again tonight ;)
Ha, I know the first comment was before today's game, but I don't especially care if Keller is coming inside even if he's missing badly. He didn't have great command, but he wore down in that fifth. Before then he struck out six and walked one. I'll take that all day, especially with that movement.
I think what tonight showed, and I'll probably at least mention this tomorrow is that things change very quickly when the sample is this small.
I'm already getting tired of reading and hearing that "Pitcher X pitched well in a loss." I suppose it's better than "he pitched horribly in a loss" but somehow that doesn't make me feel any better.
The Twins' gift of 11 free baserunners in the first 16 innings of the series failed to persuade the Royals that it was okay to actually score a run except for on a Sunday. That's bad. Like, really really bad.
The offense was absolutely the problem this weekend, which is both surprising and I don't think *that* surprising given that we knew they'd be streaky in some ways. I just didn't expect them to start 0 for 19 with RISP. It'll be interesting to see how they rebound or if they rebound. The sequencing sucks, but if it's just a three-game sweep that would have hardly been noticed later in the year, it'll be easy to move on.
Buddy Bell has cursed us with knowledge.
I'm encouraged though. To me the defense is the biggest problem. Hitting and Pitching both seem improved (results notwithstanding). I'm also a bit disappointed though. Just was so excited for baseball season that it's a bit of a bummer to start it off this way. Still, there's a game tonight.
Yeah, it was a massive bummer to start off like that and probably is going to keep away people for awhile now unless they turn it around super quick. But that's the beauty of baseball, right? There'll be seven more games before I write another one of these weekends in review. Who's to say they can't be 7-3 then? I mean, me, I'll say that, but it's at least possible.
I agree that it's "only been 3 games" but it's just SO familiar for us to keep seeing this way of losing after many years of the same type of loses to begin the season.
Have the Royals traded someone like the Red Sox did with Ruth, that there's a curse on them? Asking for a friend!
It is super familiar and it's a big reason why it's easy to believe what we saw. I'm not even saying it won't be a disaster season, but I think there were some good signs at least.
Great recap of the weekend that was. When the game reached the 8th inning on Saturday, Denny mentioned repeatedly that hitters were ‘swinging at a memory’ due to the shadows, a sliver of sunlight, and a glare off of the hitters’ backdrop. Both teams had to deal with it, and both staffs threw almost exclusively fastballs. Ain’t no way to adjust to that. That notwithstanding, it was a serious deflation of my rally hat. And once Joey Gallo had himself a day late in the game Sunday, that rally hat had pfffttt-d right out the window. Bring on those Jays, hopefully their stay in Missouri can continue a miserable road trip!
Thanks, Tom! I was at the game on Saturday and honestly, I lose the ball when it passes through that sliver of sun. That was rough and both sides definitely took advantage. Hopefully it's a better week ahead now that they're on a routine.
3 games don’t mean much…but man the royals have a way of letting the air out of a season early don’t they? It’s amazing really. I think this was just a smack in the face back to reality. Nothing I saw changes any opinions about what I thought going into the year really. I do think the starting rotation will be a big problem. Greinke and Lyles got out of it…but both could have had a much worse line. I just think the twins are a better team and it showed this weekend. The Royals have a ways to go yet. Plenty of promise and things to keep tabs on…..But maybe from 75 I’m more like 73 now. Lol.
I thought Greinke looked better than Lyles, but I don't think he looked great by any stretch. Keller, to me, showed the most upside of the three, which shouldn't be any surprise given age and all that, but still, it was nice to see some of the nasty movement he gets. But, that said, I'm actually a bit more encouraged by the rotation because Greinke actually got some whiffs, which surprised me. I think he's in for a regression, but maybe it won't be quite as crazy. If Keller can be solid enough and Singer can keep up what he did last year and *someone* steps up, there's the makings of some quality and more than I expected.
For me, the offense obviously has work to do, but the indicators were good. Nobody wants to hear it and I 100% get it because, man, 4 runs sucks. But if they have series like that again, they're probably scoring a lot more. But you are absolutely right. The air is just gone now. They need like a 12-2 stretch just to get people back and that's a bad place to be after one weekend. They can't just get to 4-4 and then dip. We'll see, I guess. I mean I'll be here. I'm sure you will be too. But for the rest? They need to bounce back in a big way.
I want Coleman to be the guy. And he has a TON of time to figure it out and he will. But man, he doesn’t have it right now and it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to send a message that results matter here if he doesn’t turn it around in the next week or so.
I would say he has a chance to get optioned pretty quick if he doesn’t turn it around.
Hitters look a little too aggressive, but the pitching looks better. The bats will come around. I’m still drinking the koolaid! All the little Billy Buzzkills need to lighten up and quit writing them off already.
It seems like they've been aggressive at the wrong times because they are third in baseball in walk rate. Keep doing what they're doing and I'll bet they score a fair amount of runs.
I have already gone from optimist to pessimist. Yes Isbel looked pretty good, but shouldn't he have made a throw home after that short sac fly in second game? Salvy was ready for it and maybe that would have changed momentum a bit. And Keller? I am surprised you are happy with that, I am ok with him getting gassed by 5th, but How many times did he nearly take someones head off? think he got lucky those first 4. I also think they will be lucky to split series with Toronto.
That being said the optimist in me believes they will get some offense rolling and wins on the road. I hope a lot of the poor offense has been opening day jitters by the yunguns. Yesterday Piccolo said he was surprised how many guys admitted to jitters. Also wondering if Vinnie is in his head too much, maybe he got tired of playing the fun guy at the wbc - he seems much more serious now (which isn't a bad thing neccesarily). Also have to give a surprising nod to pitching, glad lyles and yarbs did what we hoped they would do. Maybe we can just chalk up the good and the bad to experience.
Hope Singer and the boys get me thinking playoffs again tonight ;)
Wildcard! ;)
Ha, I know the first comment was before today's game, but I don't especially care if Keller is coming inside even if he's missing badly. He didn't have great command, but he wore down in that fifth. Before then he struck out six and walked one. I'll take that all day, especially with that movement.
I think what tonight showed, and I'll probably at least mention this tomorrow is that things change very quickly when the sample is this small.
Your Q&A session was hilarious! Thank you.
Glad you liked it!