Game 2

Since my last post was during Opening Day, I gave myself a pass and said I didn't have to write again until today. I'm hesitant to make any grand claims about the season, even at this point. We really won't know anything for any reasonable certainty until three weeks from now. That being said, let's address a few things, starting with the only true problem of the first two games.

The pitching is fine. We need to score runs.

There are those who will say that the bullpen blew both of these games. While those people are technically right, it isn't solely the bullpen's fault. It's hard to keep a team off the scoreboard. The bullpen has given up two runs in 4 2/3 innings pitched. That's not horrible. The starters have gone 6.1 and 7 IP respectively. I can't blame the pitching for losing two late-inning games in the fashion that they have. It puts enormous pressure on a bullpen when they have to come into a tied game late and pitch nearly perfectly to escape. Collins did a poor job today, but everyone has bad outings, especially early. The real takeaway from this point is that the Royals need to hit. They just haven't yet. There were a couple good innings, but one was ruined by a dp ball that should never have been swung at and one was ruined by a previous coaching decision, which brings me to point number two.

Ned Yost, please don't pinch run for your all-star, gold glove catcher in the eight inning when he is standing on second with nobody out.

This was the most egregious decision in my mind. It could be argued that pinch running for Billy after his walk was also a bad idea, but Salvy is one of the best players on the team. Don't pinch run for him earlier than the 9th inning in desperation mode. I guess hindsight is 20/20, but I just knew this was going to come back to bite them in the ass. Dyson never even made it to third and the following inning ended when Brett Hayes grounded out with two men in scoring position. The over-willingness to pinch run needs to be addressed by management. If I were Dayton Moore, I would have a conversation with Ned Yost tonight about using complementary players sparingly, instead of whenever you freaking feel like it. Rany Jazayerli noted on Twitter that a change in philosophy from pinch running eagerness to pinch hitting eagerness might be better for the team. I think this might be true, especially in the case of Escobar. There just needs to be more thought given to the situation. There was always a decent chance that Salvy was going to come back up, Ned just needs to stop overthinking and let his lineup do what it does.

As a closing note, the Royals faced probably two of the top 10 pitchers in the American League in their first two games, so I will forgive them for not crushing the ball all over the field. They certainly need to step it up though if they hope to compete this year. Averaging 2.5 runs per game right now which is certainly not going to win you many games, unless the pitching staff all have career years.