The white smoke appeared today, signaling the
selection of a new Pope and, apparently, foreshadowing an
Alberto Castillo walk-off homer. I haven’t had the chance to watch the game yet, but I have some thoughts on the action anyway…
The Royals certainly haven’t hit a lot of walk-off bombs in the past ten years or so, so every time they do, the event tends to stick in my mind. Castillo – who has to be the most unlikely Royals hero since Rey Sanchez took Mike Trombley out of the yard in 2000 – hit his off Arthur Rhodes, who’s probably growing tired of facing the Royals at Kauffman Stadium in the late innings of a tight games. Less than two years ago, Carlos Beltran hit a game-winner off of Rhodes, who was then pitching with Seattle.David DeJesus is quickly becoming one of my favorite players, mostly because he embodies the approach every Royals hitter should be taking in each plate appearance. David, who’s now hitting .309/.397/.400 on the season, really is becoming Johnny Damon v2.0, only with less basestealing ability and, of course, far less hair.After more than a week of play, we finally saw an example of how the Royals are putting themselves behind the 8 ball by carrying 12 pitchers. In the 8th inning, Indians manager Eric Wedge brought in Rhodes, a lefty, to face Matt Stairs with Mike Sweeney on first base and nobody out. Tony Pena countered the move by sending the right-handed hitting Tony Graffanino to bat for Stairs and, later in the inning, pinch-hit for Terrence Long with Eli Marrero.
Graffanino stayed in the game to play third base and Marrero was put in right field. Those moves required that, unless Pena wanted to waste another potential pinch-hitter in Emil Brown, jack-of-all-trades guy Super Joe McEwing play relatively out of position in left field. It would’ve taken a crazy chain of injuries for disaster to strike, but if it had, the Royals would’ve been out of non-catchers if Brown had entered the game. (Imagine John Buck having to play first base, or even a corner outfield spot.) At this point, I really don’t see any reason why a non-performing 12th pitcher like Nathan Field is deemed as needed in the major leagues, while potentially-useful position players like Luis Ugueto and Matt Diaz are wasting away in the minor leagues.Again, I haven’t seen any of yesterday’s game yet, but the box score suggests that Denny Bautista was supremely unlucky to have allowed 11 hits and five runs in 5 1/3 innings. He did just about everything right, walking only two, striking out five, and getting nine groundouts (compared to only two flyouts). To add to that, reports are that Denny was throwing heavy 97-mph fastballs with quite a bit of regularity. Perhaps the game tape will tell me differently, but it appears that the combination of a bad infield defense and blind stupid luck resulted in Pronk & Co. getting so many knocks against him.Going back to Castillo for a moment, how about The Mustachioed One picking up his third career stolen base in more than ten seasons? Paul Konerko would be proud.Andrew Sisco picked up a blown save in a situation where he probably couldn’t have converted a save opportunity anyway, but that’s pretty much been the only negative in his season so far. Sisco’s been everything I thought he’d be this year: a guy with some control problems, but also a guy with good-enough stuff that the league will find him difficult to hit during the first couple of months. If the Royals can keep him on the roster for the rest of 2005, I’d like to see him go back to the minor leagues next year to complete his apprenticeship. The kid has some big-time ability.Mike MacDougal showed what he can do to opposing hitters when he throws strikes, which is to say the Indians didn’t really have a chance. Control is a big “if” for Doogie every time he makes an appearance, but I love him for it. There’s nothing quite like having a real-life Ricky Vaughn on your favorite team.On a non-Royals note, if you haven’t seen Vladimir Guerrero’s Monday home run off of Aaron Sele, you need to watch it. While I disagree with Jim Rome that Guerrero’s the best player in baseball, I agree with him in that there’s nobody else I’d rather pay to watch. After all, hitters who swing out of their shoes on every pitch are just really freakin’ cool.And finally, since the big-league club isn’t doing much in the way of hitting, here’s a look at what 18-year-old Billy Butler’s doing to California League pitchers at High-A High Desert:
.404/.491/.702
Yes, High Desert is a launching pad of a ballpark, but Butler’s demolishing pitchers who’re much, much older than he is. I think we’re looking at the hitting version of Zack Greinke, and that isn’t a bad thing in the least.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, April 20, 2005 at 4/20/2005 12:00:00 AM.
|
