I still don't have anything definite to say about my little secret, so instead, I'll spend some time discussing the Royals'
series victory over the Indians. Or for those of you with a
real sense of Royals nostalgia, the biggest Kansas City miracle since that time
Jim Pittsley shut out the Cincinnati Reds for five innings. Moving on...
If there ever was a day in which Lima Time! ensued for five innings before Homer Time! took over for the remainder of the start, it was Sunday. And while Jose Lima -- the creator of Lima Time! -- is probably the only Royals player I'm currently rooting against, it was certainly cool to see a Royals pitcher carry a no-hitter into the middle innings. However, like Brian Anderson a few starts before him, I noticed that Lima was getting outs despite repeatedly falling behind in the count. Granted, much of his falling behind could be credited to home plate umpire Eric Cooper and his days' worth of horrid umpiring behind the dish, but regardless, Lima fell behind, and the Indians' hitters just didn't make him pay for it until their two-dinger, five-run sixth inning.
Looking deeper, we can see that falling behind and eventually walking hitters has been a problem in 2005 Lima, a guy whose greatest asset is his usually stellar control:
| YEAR | BB/9IP |
| 1994-2004 | 2.10 |
| 2005 | 3.93 |
The spike of 1.80 walks per nine innings pitched has come in only 32.1 innings, but it's noteworthy because he's now on the wrong side of 30. Lima's had his usual problems with pitched baseballs ending up in the hands of fans in fair territory (although he's certainly no 2005 Eric Milton), so if his control's left him, he'll be far more of a liability than I ever dreamed when this season started. Again, I hope this will be Lesson No. 1,482 in The Ongoing Education of Allard Baird: No pitcher can be an "innings eater" if he isn't good enough in the first place to stay in ballgames for at least seven innings.Unfortunately,Ken Harvey's back in the Majors, and I suspect his Saturday 3-5 hitting line that included a grand slam will be enough to keep him here for the rest of the season. The Big Contact has a gift for making very hard contact when he displays solid pitch selection at the plate (the slam was a rocket to left-center field), but it's very clear that he still doesn't have the slightest clue how to select good pitches to swing at. Heck, even the usually mild-mannered Denny Matthews, Ryan Lefebvre, and Brian McRae of RSTN took notice during Sunday's game, criticizing Harvey for swinging at at least two up-and-in pitches at neck level against Scott Elarton. Ken has the physical abilities to be a useful first baseman, but it'll take him realizing he's not Vladimir Guerrero to accomplish that.Yet again, Andy Sisco was lights-out in the eighth inning of a one-run ballgame, coaxing a weak fly ball out and a double play grounder after walking Travis Hafner to lead off the inning. With his smooth mechanics and aggressiveness in pounding the strike zone, I'm not sure how he walked a batter every other inning in A-ball a year ago.Denny Bautista's making me look really stupid for wanting him sent back to Triple-A to start the season, and I hope he keeps doing so. Not only has he been decent in the ERA department (4.55), his peripheral statistics are very encouraging as well:
| IP | SO/9 | BB/9 | GB/FB |
| 29.2 | 6.98 | 3.08 | 3.17 |
Roughly 75 percent of the balls in play against him have been groundballs, a ratio that would make Kevin Brown jealous. It's as simple as this: when Denny figures out how to throw strikes on a more consistent basis (he's already farther ahead in that area than I thought he'd be), he's going to become a dominant #1 starting pitcher. If we aren't careful, that could happen this year.
This entry was posted
on Monday, May 02, 2005 at 5/02/2005 12:00:00 AM.
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