A Glimmer of Hope
After everything that happened in sports yesterday, I’ll be surprised if we hear the “s” word mentioned much at all on talk radio, in newspapers, or on TV. Not only did Tiger won a major tournament for the first time in what seems like a million years, but Sunday also provided us with John Smoltz and Pedro Martinez engaging in the mother of all pitching duels, Josh Beckett striking out 11 Washington Nationals in a shutout victory, Johan Santana blowing away the White Sox like it was 2004 all over again, and Vladimir Guerrero hitting one of his patented moonshots to left field. And I know Baltimore’s series win over the Yankees was a sweet, sweet victory for all you Yankee-haters out there, especially the Royals fans that suffered through the late 1970s.
Speaking of the Royals, they had a pretty darned successful weekend in Anaheim. As a result of taking two out of three from the Angels, they’ll open up their home schedule tomorrow against Seattle with a .500 record and, more importantly, quite a bit of confidence.
They began building that confidence on Friday night, when Denny Bautista had The Start far earlier than I thought he would. Just as a point of reference, The Start is a young pitcher’s coming-out party in which he displays to the baseball world what he can do. It's a pretty special thing to watch, because it doesn’t just happen for every pitcher in his early-20s who’s blessed with great stuff and an encouraging track record. Just ask Jeremy Affeldt. Anyway, while I haven’t had the chance to actually watch Bautista’s performance (the game file I downloaded from MLB.com’s been having some technical problems), judging from the box score and accounts from KRB readers who watched it on TV, he pretty much had a perfect outing. Well, I guess it wasn’t perfect; he did allow two singles and a double in his eight innings of work. But when you consider he struck out one batter per inning on average, picked up 13 groundball outs, and displayed amazing control (zero walks) for a guy with control problems, he was as close to perfect as a pitcher can be without going David Wells on the opposing offense.
If the performance itself wasn’t enough, how he achieved his final totals was even more impressive. While Bautista was under strict orders from the club to throw fastballs 70 percent of the time, he picked up each of his strikeouts on unbelievably-filthy 12-6 curves and harder breaking pitches that appeared to be sliders. I really don’t like to make comparisons, especially after first starts, but Bautista was working like Martinez did in the late-90s with the Red Sox. Like Pedro, he (probably) got ahead of the Angels’ hitters with well-placed 95-mph fastballs before finishing them off with a breaking ball that looked like a strike until the last second, when it took a nosedive straight into the dirt. Bautista used that strategy to perfection against Guerrero, who swung well over the top of a knee-high curveball before chasing a slider well out of the strike zone later in the game.
I really don’t believe Bautista’s going to make it through an entire season without bumps in the road. There are going to be nights where he won’t be able to find home plate, and as a result, he’s going to get creamed every once in awhile. But the days leading up to his next start should be filled with nothing but celebration, not only because he flashed the awesome ability Allard Baird played up after acquiring him for Ordinary Relief Pitcher Jason Grimsley last June, but also because Royals fans hadn’t seen a Royals pitcher dominate a game with sheer power in the past ten or 11 seasons. Zack Greinke’s crazy craftiness got him a few seven-inning shutouts last year, but no KC hurler since Kevin Appier had blown batters away with the awesome stuff Denny displayed to kick off the series.
Unfortunately (but also expectedly), Jose Lima wasn’t able to continue the trend the next evening. In fact, Lima’s Saturday couldn’t have been any more of an antithesis to Bautista’s Friday. Whereas Bautista got ahead of almost every hitter, the noted control artist Lima fell behind, and even walked in a run in the first inning. And after he put the Angels’ hitters in good hitting situations, he found the middle of the plate far too frequently, and took a seven-run beating as a result. Lima’s already taken two of the Royals’ three losses this season and, so far, has been the only Kansas City starting pitcher to pitch ineffectively. The sooner Jimmy Gobble’s ready to take Lima’s place in the rotation, the better off the Royals will be.
But what transpired in Saturday’s 8-3 loss wasn’t all negative, especially after Andy Sisco kept the Royals relatively in the game with three shutout innings complete with no walks and three strikeouts. Despite his 19-game hitting streak coming to a halt, David DeJesus drew three walks, and has already drawn six in 23 at-bats so far this season. As a team, KC drew seven walks against Kevin Gregg (who I was very impressed with) and two Angels relievers, so they probably were unlucky to score only three times in the game.
The Royals turned the tables on Anaheim yesterday, beating them 8-3. The story of the first three of innings was Brian Anderson, whose reworked delivery did wonders. It appeared to me that he’s throwing more over-the-top as opposed to a three-quarters arm angle, and he retired the first nine Angels, four of which on strikeouts. He did a fantastic job of throwing first-pitch strikes, changing speeds, and hitting his spots: everything he didn’t do last year. In fact, he only missed his location badly on back-to-back pitches to Chone Figgins (who ripped a line drive over DeJesus’ head for a triple) and Guerrero (who ripped a belt-high changeup all the way to Michigan). I really believed the 5-0 lead was going to evaporate when Anderson fell behind Garret Anderson 3-0, but he kept his wits about him, getting Anderson and Juan Rivera on easy groundouts.
The Royals hitters were teeing off on Bartolo Colon all day long, just as I suspected they would before the game. Colon’s really no different than any other pitcher: if he throws his breaking and offspeed stuff over the plate for called strikes, the opposing team’s going to have a long day ahead of them. However, if he can’t get his curve over, he has a tendency to throw nothing but fastballs, and even the worst big-league hitters become all-stars when they know what’s coming.
Ruben Gotay led the attack with four hits (including a towering home run), and handled himself well in the field. From an offensive standpoint, Gotay reminds me quite a bit of Ray Durham, from his ability to slash the ball into alleyways to his lefthanded batting stance. Emil Brown also got into the act with his second homer, as did Angel Berroa (three hits), and Terrence Long, who whacked his fourth double. Surprisingly, the only guy who looked awful all day long was Calvin Pickering. His normally very good bat speed was non-existent, and he just didn’t look comfortable at the plate all day long. I’m guessing he’ll relax after his wife gives birth to their son in the near future, and he might even go on a hitting rampage like Johnny Damon did in 2000 after his wife gave birth to triplets.
After struggling in the early-going, the bullpen did a very nice job of holding serve. Nathan Field and Jaime Cerda each threw two-thirds of an inning, each picking up a strikeout. Mike MacDougal finished things off with a very efficient 1 2/3 innings performance, picking up a strikeout while displaying a simpler delivery and, as a result, unusually-good command. He looked like the MacDougal from the first half of 2003 who was damn near unhittable at times, and shortened games to eight innings.
All told, the Royals beat the Angels with some legitimately-good pitching:
| IP | H | K | BB | HR | ERA |
| 26.0 | 21 | 21 | 2 | 2 | 3.12 |
I don't know about you, but I can't remember the last time any Royals pitching staff walked only two (TWO!) batters in an entire three game series, much less struck out 7.27 batters per nine innings. It looks like new pitching coach Guy Hansen's really made a difference in a very short period of time.