Royals Primacy A Kansas City Royals blog

Recapping Road Trip, Preview Homestand

Posted by: Casey on April 22, 2010.

Kansas City finished its 3 team road trip (Tigers 2-1, Twins 1-2, Canadians 1-2) a total of 4-5, which isn’t bad. We should have swept the Tigers (see: bullpen meltdown), salvaged game 3 against Twins and almost gave away game 3 against the Blue Jays but came out with a victory. There are some positives and some negatives, as with any situation, and I’m going to attempt to break down some of them.

Positives from road trip:

• Greinke. In Zack’s start against Toronto on Wednesday, he showed some more life than he had the rest of the season. His fastball velocity was still a little low, but he was locating his slider and his pitch-mix was more like last year’s. He still lived up in the zone with his fastball too often for my liking, but overall a good sign.
• Absurd hitting. We are still hitting at ridiculous numbers. As a team, a .296 BA 15 games into a season is a good sign. No one expects it to continue, but no one expected it in the first place. Yes, the 2010 Royals, defying expectations.
• Relievers. The bullpen hasn’t been as bad as it was to start the season. They will still struggle all season long, but hopefully not at the pace as it was heading. I should modify this by saying the bullpen was pretty bad in the Detroit series, but Rupe has been a solid contributor since his arrival. I do expect a move to be made tomorrow, hopefully Mendoza being sent down for another pitcher.
• Jose Guillen. ‘Clots (too early?) is actually contributing. I know, crazy. I’ve been as much of an advocate for him being traded as anyone, and right now just might be the perfect time to do it. If anyone’s going to take on his huge salary, they might be more inclined when he’s hitting .377/.406/.738. Let’s face it, we’re leading the league in hitting and sitting in 4th place. Guillen has been our best performer so far, but he’s not going to get us into the playoffs. With Getz returning fairly soon, Callaspo is the odd man out and Gordon needs at bats, and knowing Hillman he’ll want to get Callaspo out there as much as possible. I just think it’s best for the team to trade JG.
• Yuniesky Betancourt. Oddly enough, our talented short stop is actually performing up to this point. Sure he hurts on defense at times (seems improved to me), but when he’s hitting .309 who’s complaining? Not me. I was glad when we traded for Yuni mostly because of his potential to be a decent SS. I don’t question work ethic when Trey Hillman is involved.
• Billy Butler. BB off to a better start than he was last year. I think this is a big positive for the team. He’s not squaring up that pitch early in the count like he did last year when he was a doubles machine, but he’s still hitting better than he did last april (doesn’t take much). This might not be a big deal to most Royals fans, but I find the joy in the little things.
• Jason Kendall. He is way better than I thought he would be. Both offensively and defensively. I’ll say it. Plus he’s a great veteran to have in that clubhouse.
• We are not the Pirates.

Negatives from road trip:

• Rick Ankiel. Rick showed some great early season promise, but I really think he’s going to be a streaky player for us. The main problem I see with Ankiel (aside from confusion) is that no matter what the count is, he’s got the exact same swing. Because of that lack of a skill, Ankiel is a career .151 hitter with two strikes. The main way that he needs to overcome this issue is by being more patient at the plate. It’s almost like he’s afraid of getting two strikes that he tries to get a pitch to square up before then. Pitchers know that he’s an early ball hitter, so they’re very careful early in the count. It would also be nice if a coach could get him to shorten up with two strikes, but that would be good coaching.
• Gil Meche. Gil really doesn’t look good at this point in the season. I am at the point that I don’t think we’re going to see a sub-4.00 ERA from Meche again in his career. I hope my opinion changes come his next start, but as it stands now, that’s how I feel.
• Brayan Pena. He had an absolutely terrible game behind the plate against Toronto on Tuesday. As I mentioned on twitter, I hadn’t noticed him being that bad defensively last year, and I still don’t think he was as bad last year as he was Tuesday, but we’ve been kinda spoiled by Kendall to this point.
• Record. Like I’ve already stated, we are leading the league in hitting at a crazy pace, yet we are sitting 6-9. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when we cool off…

Pitching match-ups for Twins series:

• Game 1 – Pavano (2-1, 4.96) vs Meche (0-1, 11.57)
• Game 2 – Blackburn (1-1, 6.05) vs Hoch (2-0, 2.89)
• Game 3 – Slowey (2-1, 2.45) vs Bannie (0-1, 4.58)