Today's Baseball Fact

From the American League Central standings:

Kansas City has a better record than the Twins despite not having as many home runs.

 

It did last night.

George likes it in the front office too well, and his judge of baseball talent as veep of baseball operations is exquisite. We should never have fired Kevin Seitzer two years ago.

Pedro Grifol is now our "catchers' instructor." "Instructing" Sal Perez in catching is bit like trying to instruct Billy Graham in preaching the Gospel. :laugh:

 

We went over this in Spring training, and I warned Tnid that KC wasn't ready to be AL Central kings yet.

I also told him that the Whitesox's added bats would put them in the running....that was before they spent 2 weeks without Abreu, a month without Sale, and lost Avasail Garcia for the season.
Now they are edging up on the listing Detroit squad, but still in need of Pitching.

 

Living up to your name!

 

The Royals just gave my Cardinals a royal whoopin and took 3 of 4 from the reigning National League Champs. Boooooooooooo

 

Beat me to it. I was gonna crow about this.

SS, gotta scary pic for ya ...



And Prophet? CC?

We're only 60 games through a 162-game schedule, the Royals are 1.5 games back of the Sox and four back of Detroit, and only two games back in the win column. Last year after the All-Star break was our best part of the season. They were 43-27, and this year haven't had the "Spring slump" they had last year. Watch it, Prophet. We're comin' after ya.

 

This is good news because I picked KC to win the division.

 

Nope. That would be your Twinkies at 0.4827586206896552 while the Royals are at 0.4833333333333333. But that was a nice try.

Other than that, the teams are nearly identical through the first part of the season -- both 14-15 on the road, both with one more loss than wins at home, both 5-5 over the last 10. That's about to change, though. Wave bye-bye as we pull away, 'K?

 

... resulting in the Twinkies dropping to three games under .500. Over the last eight games, the Royals took three of four from St. Louis, two of three from the Yankees and decimated the Indians last night to move within a half-game of second place and three games from the Tigers in first, and only a half-game back in the win column. Hm. Three home runs, too. Imagine that.



I love baseball!! Well, I like it a lot anyway.

 

It's all in the perspective. I love Jesus. I love my wife. I love my kids. I even love her kids, and I especially love my grandkids.

I like baseball, but I like it a lot! Probably exactly as you do. :thumbsup:

 

... and having said that, I gleefully report the Royals are in second place and have a four-game win streak, surpassed only by the five in a row of the Angels in all of MLB. KC has won seven of nine and nine of thirteen -- as opposed to the rest of the division. :laugh:

 

Great baseball going on in the AL Central this year.

 

My Reds won't sniff .500 all season long, I'm afraid. :tear:

We have the talent to win that division, but Cueto is only 6-5 win a sub-2.00 ERA....something like 1.85 or maybe even lower than that.


He lost opening day 1-0, going 7 innings.

He lost 2-1 in another game, going 7.

He went 8 shutout innings when the Reds lost 1-0 in 10 innings to the Braves.

He did fan 12 in 6 as we beat the Dodgers 5-0....whoop-dee-doooooo

 

He's at 1.83 last I knew, but I think he's had a start since then. Yeah, the Reds are struggling to score for him -- 2.8 runs a game. That should make for 3-2 ball games for him, but it's not working out that way. Too bad. He's a great pitcher. Billy Hamilton is having a good year with 24 stolen bases, but he needs to hit more in order to help score runs.

Our guys were struggling in May to support any of our pitchers, but they've broken out over the last two weeks. "Big Game James" Shields has been everything the Royals hoped for, and we've got two young outstanding pitchers in Yordano Ventura and Jason Vargas and a great young catcher in Salvador Perez running them. Our defense is better than I've ever seen it. With Hosmer, Gordon, Escobar, Dyson, Cain, Perez, Aoki, Infante, and Vincente all hitting .250 to over .300, we're playing about as well as I've seen this team play in 20-25 years.

Billy Butler's a disappointment this year. I don't how much longer the Royals will be patient with him. Rumors are, they're talking to Seattle about a trade for Nick Franklin, but he's just as big a bust this year as Billy is.