I'll pass on berating Kyle Farnsworth for giving up the ballgame. I managed to miss his appearance and have only read about it. I swear my blood pressure triples every time I think about Farns... nope. Not gonna say his name. I will, however, point out how he's doing so far:
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*HI Stress = 4/7 (up by 1 run) and 4/15 (tied)
*LOW Stress = 4/10 (down by 3 runs) and 4/13 (up by 4 runs)
The numbers say why my blood pressure rises so I will say no more. Yuck. I already have a headache.
Aside from Farn****th pitching and the team losing, there were some positive trends beginning to show on Wednesday. In the three game series with the Indians, the Royals managed to walk 16 times against only 22 strikeouts. In the final game of the series, three consecutive Royals drew a walk (Teahen, Jacobs and Gordon) and drove in a run doing so (It woud have been nice if the next hitter, Miguel Olivo, did NOT swing early and NOT gound out weakly... but he did and I felt the blood pressure rise, yet again). That's another trend I'm hoping will start in Texas... less Miguel Olivo (13 SO, 0 BB in 21 PAs) and more Brayan Peña and John Buck. We'll see if Hillman has the guts to sit Olivo for 2 of 3 in Texas.
What else was a positive? Well, not much on the offensive side of things. Crisp played well and now has (2) 2B, (3) 3B and (1) HR on the season. Really though, the team is hitting .216/.297/.373 so far this year. Obviously the strength (Farns***th aside) has been the pitching. The first time thru the rotation was great for the starters and the 2nd time thru was great for the bullpen. If one part of the staff can lean on the other for a week at a time, the Royals will continue to succeed this year. But a real test will come during this next series against Texas (and maybe our next opponent, Cleveland, who just put a 9 spot on the Yankees bullpen yesterday).
Here's Texas' overall batting line so far this year: .291/.361/.556. They draw lots of walks and hit lots of HRs (19 thru Thursday). They've played two series at home and one on the road (@ Detroit).
Runs Scored @ home: 62
Runs Scored @ road: 9
Obviously they can hit. The Royals have the top of the rotation (Meche-Greinke-Davies) slated to pitch which means we'll really get to find out what we're made of. Good pitching (Royals) meets good hitting (Rangers). There is one glimmer of hope, however -- as good as the Rangers are at hitting, they are almost as bad at pitching. They rank first in the league in runs scored (72) and are 12th (of 14) in runs allowed (62). The Royals won't win a shootout with the Rangers, but I'd expect the offense to wake up a little more this weekend.
The Rangers will trot out #5 Matt Harrison - #1 Kevin Millwood - #2 Vicente Padilla to face the Royals. Millwood has been great thus far giving up only 1 run and 9 hits in 14 IP. The other two, however, haven't been very good yet this year.
- Matt Harrison faced the Tigers and made it thru 5.2 innings, allowing 4 Runs on 9(!) hits and 5(!) walks, good for a 2.5 WHIP.
- Vicente Padilla has pitched twice so far: He was decent in his first outing (5.2 IP, 3 ER, 4 H, 3 BB) but terrible in his last (3.1 IP, 7 ER, 11 H, 1 BB).
If the Royals play for offense (ie, starting Aviles and Callaspo over TPJ and Bloomquist) I think they have a good chance in this series. The Rangers have no pitching outside of Millwood this year (the bullpen, in 28.1 IP, has allowed 29 R (25 ER) and 7 HR) and the weather will be nice and warm for the hitters. There's no reason to expect less than 6 runs per game during the series from the KC offense. Let's hold them to just 4 runs per game and take 2 of 3.
What do ya say?
