Royals Today: 4/22/2009.

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(Late update: reader Brad comments in my last post that he has requested that iTunes add the show to their list of available podcasts. It doesn’t appear to be up yet, but hopefully in my next post I’ll have instructions on that.)

- In its own way, last night’s game was every bit as frustrating as Sunday’s, if not more so. The Royals collectively batted 13-for-34, with four walks, a HBP, three doubles, and a homer – their line for the game was .382/.462/.559. Ordinarily that’s a line that should produce a double-digit run total – assuming you don’t ground into a franchise-record six double plays in the game.

Even so, the Royals scored seven runs, which is enough to win most nights – and would have been enough to win every game the Royals had played up to this point. The Royals had not surrendered more than six runs in a game all season, but Sidney Ponson matched that total by the fourth inning, and frankly he was lucky it wasn’t worse. For the game the Indians actually had more batters reach safely (19) than the Royals did (18), thanks to nine walks, and left nine runners on base compared to the Royals’ six.

Every one-run loss eats at you in a different way, and the Royals are now 1-3 in one-run games this year. But I’m a lot more upbeat after this game than after Sunday’s. This time we didn’t lose because of managerial incompetence*; we lost because our batters, while very productive overall, hit ground balls at infielders at the most inopportune times. Productivity is a lot more consistent than serendipity. The 18 baserunners who reached, the way the Royals mounted threats in almost every inning, the way they battled back to score six runs in two innings off the Indians’ bullpen – that tells us more about what the Royals are capable of going forward than the fact that they hit ground balls with a man on first and less than two outs in six straight innings.

*: I have no significant issue with Hillman bringing in Juan Cruz to pitch the eighth with the Royals down a run, even though Cruz wound up giving up a two-run homer to Victor Martinez that proved crucial to the outcome. Cruz is clearly our second-best reliever, and he just picked a bad time to give up his first two runs of the season. Still, it must be said: Joakim Soria has not pitched in nine days. Since Soria last pitched, Kyle Davies and Sidney Ponson have both started TWICE. And for the second straight game, if Soria had been called upon to pitch in the eighth inning of a one-run game, the Royals likely would have won.

In the grand scheme of things, it’s important to remember that while the Royals should have a better record than 7-6…the Royals should have a better record than 7-6. We still have over 90% of the season left ahead of us. The fact that the Royals have underachieved to this point is frustrating, but it’s also exciting, because it means that the Royals are above .500 and tied for first place while underachieving. The Royals have scored 57 runs and allowed 46 runs, a run differential which, when plugged into the Pythagorean formula, yields a .605 winning percentage. (Using the slightly more accurate Pythagenport formula, we get a projected .595 winning percentage.) That projects to either 7.9 or 7.7 wins so far this year, which means the Royals have lost roughly one game more than they should have based on their run totals.

That win may well be crucial – but the greater point here is that the Royals have basically played like a .600 team so far this year. There’s still 149 games left; if they play like a .600 team the rest of the season, they’re going to win 95 games and we’re probably not going to care all that much about a couple of April losses.

They’re not going to play like a .600 team the rest of the way, unless Meche-Greinke-Davies continue to combine for a 1.69 ERA all season. But the Royals have a winning record, and it’s not a fluke. That’s something to build on. (And keep in mind, the Tigers have an even better run differential (72 RS, 55 RA) and the same 7-6 record. We’re not the only ones underperforming so far.)

- Thank God at least one member of the Royals’ brain trust is able to admit when he’s made a mistake. The Horacio Ramirez Starter Experiment lasted exactly one start before he was shuttled off to the only role he’s shown himself capable of filling: left-handed long reliever. He’s vastly overpaid for the role, obviously, but the money’s spent either way. The Royals do need a second lefty in the pen, so maybe Ramirez can work his way up to being the LOOGY that the Royals need, freeing Ron Mahay up for less specialized work.

I’m surprised that the Royals went with Brian Bannister in his place rather than Luke Hochevar, but I can understand the reasoning, even from a non-financial perspective. Hochevar has the better ERA in Omaha (1.89 vs. 3.46), but ERA is almost meaningless as an indicator of quality over the span of three starts. Bannister has walked one batter and struck out eight in 13 innings of work, and in his last two starts has worked nine scoreless innings with three hits and no walks. Hochevar has just five walks in 19 innings – but also has only nine strikeouts. Cool Hand doesn’t need strikeouts to be effective, given his groundball tendencies, but it’s still a sign that he’s not exactly dominating the competition.

It’s a coin-flip, basically, so if you’re the Royals, why not – despite Dayton Moore’s protests to the contrary – let the non-baseball factors make the decision for you? Hochevar came into the season with 1 year, 17 days worth of service time. However, there’s a cushion of about 10 days built into the season – you only need 172 days of service time to get credited with a full year, but there’s something like 183 days in the season. So if the Royals keep Hochevar in Triple-A for about 28 days, they can delay free agency by a full year. The Royals are going to deny that as a consideration for obvious reasons, but really, shouldn’t it be a consideration? Hochevar’s a Boras client – you don’t think he’s going to use his leverage to go to the highest bidder as soon as he hits free agency?

This is the way the game is played – both sides use whatever leverage they have. I thought it was silly to send Hochevar to Triple-A at the beginning of the year because he was better than two of the guys that were picked to be starters. But now one of them is in the bullpen, and if Ponson pitches like he did last night again, he’ll probably be gone in a few weeks. At which point the deadline has passed, and the Royals can go back to the five-man rotation they had last year – the rotation I’ve argued they should have had all along this year.

- As atrocious as Hillman’s bullpen management is, he’s always done a pretty good job of getting his bench players involved, and yesterday is a terrific example of this. In the eighth inning, with the score 6-1, the Indians brought in the sidearmer Joe Smith to pitch against Mike Aviles. Aviles has struggled in the early part of the season, but still, he’s the guy who hit .325 last year. Still, Hillman did the right thing, calling on Brayan Pena to get the platoon advantage against a pitcher where the platoon advantage is almost as important as actually being able to hit. Pena doubled, the first of five Royals to reach base in a row and the start of a four-run rally.

- What ended that rally was a groundball double play from Miguel Olivo, and what’s sad is that the most remarkable thing about the outcome was that Olivo actually made contact with the baseball: he has whiffed in nearly half of his plate appearances (13 of 28) so far this year. His OPS+ is 9, which is approaching Tony Pena Jr. territory.

He’s better than this in terms of outcome, but this is who he is in terms of style: someone whose mid-range power can’t compensate for his appalling command of the strike zone, and someone who has never hit right-handed pitching in his career. This is one of those Common Sense Tests that Hillman has been struggling with all month: do you continue to use the catcher hitting .143/.143/.286 more often than the catcher hitting .409/.480/.909? Sometimes when a question seems to have an obvious answer, it’s a trick question. Sometimes, the answer really is that obvious. John Buck needs, and deserves, to start behind the plate at least 60% of the time. No, Buck can’t throw. But Olivo can’t hit, and one skill is more important than the other.

Zack Greinke reportedly loves working with Olivo, which is fine: make Olivo his personal catcher. I’m not typically thrilled with the “personal catcher” meme, but for the Royals it works, because Olivo and Buck have similar enough skill sets that there’s no point in picking Olivo’s starts based on the opposing pitcher or ballpark or whatever. Besides, if Greinke wants Olivo to catch him, I think I speak for all Royals fans when I say, MAKE OLIVO HIS STARTING CATCHER.

If Greinke wants Willie Bloomquist to start at first base, make it so. He wants his centerfielder to be a lucky fan selected from Section 107 before the game? Cool. He wants to set up a Chipotle serving table in the dugout? I recommend the green chili. He wants Kyle Farnsworth to close for him? I know a good facial reconstructive surgeon – Zack will never know the difference. (Though we’ll have to come up with a good excuse for how Farnsworth lost two inches and fifty pounds, and now speaks with a Mexican accent. We’ll need an even better excuse to explain how Farnsworth now throws strikes and doesn’t give up homers in every inning.)

- Has anyone else noticed what a crazy year Robinson Tejeda is having? So far this season he has faced 20 hitters. Two of them have hit fly ball outs; one of them grounded out. Those are the only three batters to put the ball in play. Of the other 17, 10 struck out, five walked, and two were hit by a pitch. Tejeda has also balked once, thrown two wild pitches, and picked up another out when the runner on third tried to score on another wild toss but was thrown out at the plate.

Last night’s game was a masterpiece. His line reads: hit by pitch, wild pitch (scoring an inherited runner), strikeout, strikeout to end the fourth. Then in the fifth, walk, balk, strikeout, and walk, before he was lifted. I believe tonight’s game will be delayed a few minutes to accommodate Tejeda’s induction into the Three True Outcomes Hall of Fame.

Tejeda has been as effective as anyone in the bullpen this year, but eventually he’s going to give up a hit, so unless he learns to curb the other base runners, and to curb the free bases to the guys already on base, he’s due for a blowup. Still, it’s hard to believe the Texas Rangers put this guy on waivers less than a year ago.

- Mike Jacobs is a remarkable player in many ways, as Joe Posnanski has pointed out, but the most remarkable thing he has done is to make me write a sentence I’d never thought I’d write: the Royals need Billy Butler’s glove in the game. Jacobs’ NC-17 defense on a routine grounder by Hank Blalock on Sunday was the turning point in the loss. Jacobs has only one major league skill, but fortunately it’s the most important skill in baseball: he can hit right-handed pitching. They need to let him focus on that skill, and leave everything else to the professionals.

- It’s early, but Kevin Seitzer is earning his keep so far. The Royals have drawn 43 walks in 13 games, on pace for 536 for the season (after drawing 392 last year), and ranking a respectable 9^th in the league. Bam Bam isn’t hitting for power yet, but for the first time he’s showing the plate discipline (7 walks in 41 AB) he had in the minors. Coco Crisp has 11 walks in 13 games; on top of his spring training performance, it is quite possible that we’re seeing a dramatic change in his plate approach.

- Finally – and I’m sure I’ll regret this – I’ve jumped on the bandwagon and opened a Twitter account. I have no idea what it’s for or what the hype is about, but then I’m still trying to figure out what’s the point of Facebook, other than (because everyone else is signing up) I’ve been able to locate a bunch of friends I went to school with 20 years ago. (It’s not like we actually say anything to each other – but still, I know where to find them.)

So if you’re into Tweeting, then you can find me at Jazayerli. I have no idea if I’m going to use it yet or not, though if I do it will probably be to talk about the Royals. (In 140 characters or less? Seriously? I haven’t finished clearing my throat in 140 characters or less.) So feel free to follow me if you like. If you don’t, don’t worry: you won’t miss anything worthwhile.

Another Injury To Overcome.

I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it appears that having already lost the services of Alex Gordon for half the season, the Royals have suffered another blow to their playoff hopes. Joakim Soria is out indefinitely with an apparent inability to pitch.

I say “apparent” because there has no been no confirmation from the Royals on the subject. I hesitate to say that Soria is injured, because there is no evidence of an actual injury.

Nonetheless, it appears quite certain that the Mexicutioner is suffering from an ailment that prevents him from pitching. That is because the alternative explanation is that Trey Hillman has the IQ of a barnyard animal, and I think we can all agree that barnyard animals possess neither the intellect nor the communication skills necessary to obtain a job as major league manager in the first place.

See, after pitching (and picking up saves) in four of the Royals’ first seven games, Soria had not pitched in the last four – his last outing came on April 13^th. He’s fully rested, and more, the Royals have an off-day tomorrow. If ever there was a game where Soria ought to be pitching, it was this one. Even if the game was a blowout, he ought to come in. Hillman said so himself. “We’ll get Jack some work somehow,” Royals manager Trey Hillman said before Sunday's game.

So clearly, Soria is suffering from an inability to pitch. If he were able to pitch, I’m certain we would have seen him to start the eighth inning this afternoon, this being the perfect time to give Soria a two-inning save opportunity with the Royals leading by a pair of runs.

Or, after Ron Mahay gave up a double to Andruw Jones that bounced out of David DeJesus’s glove, and then after Mike Jacobs performed that weird interpretive dance he loves to do, “Waltz With Baseball”, that allowed Hank Blalock to reach base safely, then Soria would have come in. Certainly, Hillman would not have caused the bottom to fall out of my stomach when the bullpen door opened to reveal Jamey Wright to pitch with none out and the tying run at first base. Not unless Soria was suffering from AITP.

And when Wright got a slow dribbler for the first out, and a flyout from David Murphy for the second, and then Chris Davis pinch-hit for Taylor Teagarden with two outs and the tying runner in scoring position – I mean, there’s no way Hillman would have left Soria in the bullpen at that moment if he hadn’t been suffering from AITP. The fact that Soria was briefly shown lightly warming up in the bullpen alongside Kyle Farnsworth at the time was no doubt a clever ruse by Hillman, whose intellect clearly works on a plane that us mere baseball fans can not understand.

And after Wright got out of the inning (but not before surrendering the game-tying single to Davis), and the Royals went quietly in the top of the ninth inning, and the Royals had to choose between Farnsworth and Soria to pitch the bottom of the ninth inning of a tie game, surely there’s no way a sentient and bipedal primate would look at those two options and choose Captain Goodnight* – not unless Soria was suffering from AITP. (And evidently, Robinson Tejeda may have a mild case of AITP as well – our sources are looking into it.)

*: There was a computer game that I remember playing in the late 1980s, when I was about 13 years old, called “Captain Goodnight”. All I remember about the game was that you were a hero that had 24 hours to save the world and get the girl, or something like that. I also remember that the game was very, very difficult to complete in time, and after weeks of trying to finish it, I finally had a game in which I hit every button in perfect synchronicity, got to the finish line with hours to spare – and then the game crashed and I was never able to play it again. Anyway, I see those aviator goggles that Farnsworth wears, and the fact that when he comes into the game you can turn off your TV and go to bed, and I think I’m going to call him Captain Goodnight from now on. (And yes, I know some of you think I’m too obsessed with nicknames. For your sake – for all our sakes – I hope I don’t have to use it very often.)

I know today’s game was a crushing loss. I know that it has ruined my day. I know it has ruined my appetite to write the Zack Greinke column that I want to write and you want to read. I know that the final two innings completely wasted a start from Kyle Davies that in its own way was every bit as impressive as the ones his big brothers made on Friday and Saturday. (After walking four batters and throwing 22 balls in 37 pitches in the first inning, Davies responded by allowing just two hits and a walk over the next five. Davies now has 21 strikeouts in 18.2 innings – and he’s our #3 starter.) I know it kept the Royals from taking over sole possession of first place. I know that it’s the second game the Royals have lost this year that they were leading after seven innings.

But please, don’t blame Hillman for this. Rest assured that there’s no way someone could spend a quarter-century playing, coaching, and managing in professional baseball, and ascend to the highest rank of his profession before he turned 45, and make the decisions that Hillman appeared to make today. It’s simply not possible that Hillman would not use Soria to protect a tight lead, even as the inning was falling apart, just because it was the eighth inning instead of the ninth. It’s not possible that instead of Soria in the ninth, he would call upon KYLE FREAKING FARNSWORTH, who now has more losses (3) than the rest of the team combined (2) in exactly 3.1 innings of work, just because it was a tie game instead of a save situation. Trey Hillman is not that stupid. No one is that stupid.

Maybe we’ll get some confirmation from the Royals on this soon. Or maybe Soria’s AITP will clear up by Tuesday, he’ll be back on the mound, and the Royals will pretend it never existed. I don’t know much about AITP – it was never listed in any of the books I read in medical school – but I suspect that it’s a very brief affliction, sort of like the 24-hour flu. After all, it didn’t exist last night, when Soria was one batter away from coming in to close out Greinke’s masterpiece. And rumor has it that Soria had AITP on Opening Day, but it cleared up in time for him to close out the game the following day.

But he clearly had AITP today. I’m sure that it’s merely a coincidence that yesterday’s game constituted a Ninth Inning Save Situation – I capitalize those words out of respect for such an august institution – and today’s game never did.

It’s tough to lose a game because Soria came down with AITP at an inopportune time. But in a way it’s a relief to know that the reason the Royals lost yet another game that they had in the bag was simply because of AITP. I mean, if Soria doesn’t have AITP, that means the Royals lost today’s game because their manager is a complete and utter moron. AITP is curable, but I’m afraid there may be no cure for imbecilic bullpen management.

Fortunately we don’t have to worry about that. Hillman’s a brilliant manager – Dayton Moore said so himself. Let’s just hope that Hillman…I mean Soria…finds a cure for his AITP soon. The Royals can’t afford to lose any more games this season because of it. I’m not sure they could afford to lose the games they already have.

No Reason To Jump Hip.

You’re right: that was an awful pun.

This will be a short post, I’m afraid; I’m playing in a Stratomatic tournament this weekend, which hopefully goes as well as my last one did. Before we get to Alex Gordon, go ahead and listen to this week’s podcast here. The news about Gordon created an opportunity to get an opinion from an injury expert, so be sure to listen to the beginning of the show, where my Baseball Prospectus colleague Will Carroll joins us and explains what’s wrong with Gordon’s hip, and whether this injury is likely to create additional difficulties for him even when he returns. Of course, once you’re done listening to Carroll, you’ll probably want to stick around and listen to BP’s Kevin Goldstein discuss the state of the Royals’ farm system, including the mention of a “sleeper” prospect that almost made me fall out of my chair. And at that point, well, you might as well listen to the whole darn show, right?

Also, due to a scheduling conflict, next week’s show will be THIS MONDAY (the 20^th) at 8 PM, an hour later than usual. We don’t have any special guests scheduled yet – although I could always surprise you – so we’ll probably open the phones up for a big part of the show. So be ready to call in.

Anyway, yeah, the news about Gordon sucks any way you look at it – when the guy who I labeled the single most important player in determining the Royals’ playoff hopes goes out for half a season, there’s no way to spin that as a positive. But it’s not the end of the world either.

For one, we at least have some explanation for why he played as poorly as he did in the season’s first week. I wasn’t all that worked up about his 2-for-21 start, but given how lost he looked at the plate after returning to the lineup on Tuesday and Wednesday, it’s a relief of sorts to know that something really was wrong with him.

Secondly, as I talked about in March, the Royals are about as well-built to handle a key injury as they can be, thanks to Teahen. (If Willie Bloomquist is the Spork, what does that make Teahen? A solid-gold Swiss Army knife, the one that’s like 2 inches thick and has 43 different gizmos attached?) Teahen’s flirtation with second base gets the cold shower for a few months, so Gordon’s bat essentially gets replaced with Alberto Callaspo’s. That’s not an insignificant difference, but Callaspo is himself an asset in a starting role. The Royals lose some power, but don’t lose much if anything in terms of baserunners – a few of Gordon’s walks get exchanged for singles. Jose Guillen should be back in right field in a week or so, and in the meantime we may get to see a little Mitch Maier – who’s perfectly capable of filling in for the short-term. Maier is a very good defensive outfielder – a DeJesus-Crisp-Maier outfield is as much an asset as the infield (in whatever permutation) is a liability.

Finally, I hope the Royals use this injury as an excuse to give Gordon something they should have given him two years ago – some more reps against minor-league pitching. So much of Gordon’s struggles have always seemed more mental than physical to me, the way he’ll occasionally let a perfectly hittable fastball go by and then swing wildly at a pitch he has no hope of reaching. Much like Teahen benefited from a refresher course in Omaha in 2006, I think a few weeks (20 days is the maximum length for a rehab assignment) of batting against Triple-A pitchers may help to remind Gordon that hey, he’s better than these guys. A little confidence boost may help Gordon when he returns to the majors. Major league pitchers make mistake pitchers just like minor league pitchers do – they just make fewer of them. Gordon needs to stop giving opposing pitchers so much credit. He needs to be ready to turn on those mistakes, while remembering that if they don’t make a mistake, he’s good enough to find a way to hit them anyway.

All of this is just fishing for straws. This injury hurts. But as I write this, the Royals are destroying the Rangers 9-0 in the seventh. If Coco Crisp keeps taking his walks (he’s up to 10 now, second in the league, after leading the majors in spring training), and if Teahen keeps hitting and John Buck keeps bashing and if Meche keeps spinning zeroes…I think that, with or without Gordon, the Royals are going to be competitive.

Alex Gordon might be the most important player on the roster. But he’s just one player. More than they have been in a long time, the Royals are a team built to survive the loss of any player.

First Place! (For Now.)

This post may be partially outdated by the time you read this, as I’m writing this in the middle of the ballgame today – which means I may interrupt my writing as events warrant – and in between patients. (Including the Royals fan this morning who drove here all the way from Iowa (!) to see me. That’s dedication, folks. The rest of you need to step things up.) But any time I have the opportunity to write about the undisputed first-place Kansas City Royals…I’m going to take it.

Let’s try to keep things in perspective – last year the Royals started 6-2 and I was equally excited. (They then lost 11 of their next 14 games.) Still, there’s a lot to like here.

- You know all that concern about the quality of the team’s defense? The Royals seem to have hit upon a really effective solution to that problem – simply keep the defense from being involved. Through eight games, the pitching staff has struck out 76 batters – which leads the majors, comfortably – in just 71 innings. That is, in a word, sick. Just two years ago the Royals were next-to-last in the league in strikeouts; the year before that they were dead last. Last season the Royals ranked 7^th in the league, which was their highest ranking since Cone and Appier led the Royals to 6^th in strikeouts in 1994. From 1999 to 2006, the Royals ranked in the bottom three in the league in whiffs every single year.

They’re not going to continue to strike out more than a batter an inning, but this is a genuine power staff. The bullpen, in particular, is ridiculous – in 23 innings, they’ve whiffed 28 and surrendered just 14 hits. I’ve said this before, but in terms of “power stuff”, however that’s defined, Joakim Soria is only the fourth-most overpowering guy in the pen. If the Royals only have to rely on their defense for 65-70% of their outs instead of their usual 75-80%, suddenly the idea of Mark Teahen at second base or Mike Jacobs anywhere on the field is a lot more palatable.

- Ever since Gerald V. Hern coined a little ditty in the Boston Post about Warren Spahn and Johnny Sain, sportswriters have felt the need to come up with cheesy slogans for any team that heavily relies on two starting pitchers. Hence, the 2001 Diamondbacks were “Johnson and Schilling and then, God Willing.”

For the Royals, we’ve got to come up with a rhyme that incorporates three pitchers. “Meche, Greinke, and Davies, then Hide the Women and Babies?” “Meche, Davies, and Greinke, then For Two Days We’ll Be Cranky”? Clearly, this is a work in progress. Just as clearly, we’re going to need a slogan before long. The Royals are 5-1 when the Big Three start, and collectively they’re 3-0 with a 1.91 ERA, 41 strikeouts in 37.2 innings, and no homers allowed. The Little Two are 0-2 with a 6.61 ERA.

- The Little Two might just be the Microscopic One. Sidney Ponson gave another yeoman’s effort this afternoon. The Royals may be in the market for another starter this summer – if the Royals are in the race, a trade of Kila Ka’aihue for a good starter in the last year or two of his contract is a distinct possibility – but in the short term, if Hochevar or Bannister (three hits in seven scoreless for Omaha yesterday) replaces Horacio Ramirez, I have no qualms with seeing Ponson in the #5 role in the near term.

Remember, the sensation that was Lima Time! in Kansas City stemmed from the fact that Jose Lima, a refugee from the Atlantic League, was effectively the team’s #2 starter down the stretch in 2003. Ponson isn’t likely to do much worse than Lima’s 4.91 ERA that year – yet Ponson is at best the team’s #4 starter. In case you were looking for a reason to take this team more seriously than the 2003 squad, there you go.

- You know what’s even more amazing than the strikeout ratio? The pitching staff has surrendered two homers in nine games – that’s as many all year as John Buck hit in one game. That’s two homers in 80 innings. Yeah, that won’t last. But it’s still impressive.

- Davies’ performance to date has been the most important development to date, but the goings-on behind the plate aren’t far behind. It got quickly lost in the shuffle with all the money thrown at HoRam and The Professor and The Spork, but the decision to bring Miguel Olivo back was mystifying at the time, and only more so today. Olivo and John Buck have remarkably similar profiles; Olivo has the much better arm, but Buck does everything else behind the plate just as well if not better. As hitters they have identical records, but Buck is younger, he has a clue about the strike zone, and he had those two months in 2007 that make you think, hmmm...throw in Brayan Pena, whose talents are such that the Royals have made room for him as their third catcher, and you have to wonder why the Royals didn’t just keep Pena as their backup to Buck, let Olivo walk, and pocket the difference.

Instead, they not only kept Olivo, they anointed him the starter – or at least, the dominant half of a job-sharing arrangement. Given the context, then, what’s happened during the first nine games has a lot of significance. As I write this, Olivo is 3-for-21 with 13 strikeouts – and he looks so lost at the plate that I’m beginning to wonder if the LASIK doctors operated on the wrong patient this winter. Buck, given precious few opportunities to start, has taken every advantage, homering and doubling in his second start, and homering twice in his third. He’s back in the lineup as the DH against a lefty today, but he’s poised to take over the lion’s share of the duties behind the plate if Olivo doesn’t learn to wait until the pitcher has actually released the ball before deciding whether he should swing at the pitch. I wrote barely two weeks ago that “If the Royals do go to the playoffs, I’m guessing Buck, not Olivo, will be the starter behind the plate.” No reason to delay the inevitable.

- I was all for getting Brayan Pena more playing time in my last post, but starting him at DH wasn’t what I meant. But hey, it worked out. Pena’s double off of Phil Coke on Sunday, with a man on first and the Royals down a run in the eighth, is probably the biggest hit of the season to date. According to baseball-reference.com, prior to Pena’s at-bat the Royals had a 24% chance of winning the game – and the odds were certainly less when you consider the Royals were one out away from facing the greatest reliever of all time in the ninth. After his hit, the odds improved to 58%. Instead of being swept at home in the first series at the Kougar (hat tip: Sam), the Royals got back to .500.

What’s easy to forget about the three-run rally that inning was how it started: with two outs and no one on, Billy Butler pinch-hit for Mike Jacobs against Jose Veras…and walked. Credit Trey Hillman for the move – Jacobs was due to face Damaso Marte, who has been annihilating left-handed hitters for most of the decade. Butler against a generic right-hander represented better odds there, and for all the talk about how Jacobs was going to play every day this year even though he’s never hit left-handers, Hillman hasn’t been shy about limiting his reps against lefties. The Royals have faced five left-handed starters in their first nine games, and Jacobs has been benched twice (including today) in addition to getting pulled in that key situation.

But if Butler expands his strike zone (as pinch-hitters are wont to do) and gets himself out, then Mariano Rivera pitches the ninth and the rally never materializes. Instead, the Royals got their first three-run inning of the season. The next time they came to the plate – in the first inning against Fausto Carmona on Monday night – Crisp and DeJesus walked in the first, and both of them came around to score in the Royals’ second three-run inning of the season. Then last night, with the Royals trying to add some insurance runs in the eighth inning, Alex Gordon walked to load the bases and set up Buck’s grand slam. In today’s game, the Royals staged a two-run rally in the sixth on a leadoff walk by Coco Crisp, a single by Willie Bloomquist, a run-scoring grounder – and then after Buck whiffed with a man on third and two out, the Royals got consecutive walks from Mark Teahen, Jacobs (returning the favor as a pinch-hitter for Butler), and Gordon again to force in the tying run. It doesn’t look like it will be enough, thanks to Farnsworth, but the Royals never put rallies like these together in the past – at least, their hitters never did.

- A double, a popout, a tie-breaking single, a balk, and a walk. Ladies and Gentlemen, Kyle Farnsworth! I can’t pin this one on Hillman; it’s a tie game in the seventh inning, Juan Cruz threw two shutout innings last night, and someone has to pitch. No, Dayton Moore can try to dodge the overripe vegetables this time around. That sound you hear is Farnsworth sliding down the reliever totem pole; the next time the Royals need a middle reliever in a tie game in the middle innings, I suspect Robinson Tejeda will be that someone.

- Since Opening Day, Hillman has done a very solid job with the bullpen. Some may question having Ron Mahay start the ninth with a 4-0 lead on Monday, then switching to Soria after the first two batters reached base and lefties coming up. I’m fine with this move, though. Soria is more effective against lefties than righties, and Mahay doesn’t have a huge platoon split, so this is a situation where platoon considerations take a backseat to the game situation – and with the tying run on deck against an intradivision rival, a rival who was considered the favorite to win the division when the season started but who are three outs away from being 1-5…I say you go for the jugular. And what better weapon is there to cut the jugular than The Guillotine?

Cruz has now pitched two full innings twice this season, which is more times than he pitched two innings all of last year. To repeat: the cookie-cutter, by-the-numbers approach to the bullpen is the worst thing about baseball strategy today. If a reliever has the hot hand, why not ride him? Hillman did, and he got a second shutout inning each time.

- If Bloomquist and Tony Pena are ever in the same lineup again, there better be a good reason. Like, say, a breakout of impetigo in the clubhouse. Granted, with Ponson on the mound the infield defense is a greater consideration than usual – and with the Royals losing, Hillman pinch-hit for both of them to give us the much more imposing Mike Aviles-Alberto Callaspo combination late in the game.

- Mike Jacobs has done the impossible: he’s made Royals fans excited to see Billy Butler playing first base. And Butler has done the impossible: he’s giving us reason to think he might actually progress to adequate out there. I’ve been advocating all winter that Butler should be allowed to start at first base – he hasn’t played the position long enough to prove he can’t play it, while Jacobs has. He’s made enough good plays this month to prolong this experiment a little longer – like, say, all season. If the Royals approach the aesthetic ideal of using Jacobs purely as a DH, and solely against RHP, the Jacobs acquisition almost starts to make sense.

- Teahen has the reputation (at least with Royals fans) of being an excellent baserunner, and deservedly so, but…man. Getting thrown out trying to extend a single when you’re down two runs in the eighth is just dumb. Doing so immediately before Jacobs hits another homer is just heart-breaking.

It’s a tough loss. But the Royals were never going to go undefeated in one-run games this year. They’re still in first place. They put together rallies in three straight innings and just fell a run short. If I may tempt fate and quote Herm Edwards, the Royals can build on this. I just hope they also learn not to let Farnsworth destroy it.

(Tomorrow, 7 PM CDT, 810 WHB. And be ready to call in.)

Royals Today: 4/11/2009

First off, thanks to the efforts of WHB’s Blake Uhlenhake, the series premiere of Rany on the Radio is now available in podcast form: go here, and scroll down to the bottom to where you find a link to “Rany on Royals 4-9-09”. Hopefully future podcasts will be available within 24 hours of the show’s end. I thought the first show went very well; I particularly liked the part where I called Rob an ignorant slut*. Many thanks to caller Oscar for his insightful question, and I hope that more of you will call in during future episodes. Next week’s episode also airs on Thursday at 7 pm, and we should be in that time slot through May 7th. (We’ll air on Monday May 11th instead of Thursday May 14th because the Royals will be playing a night game that Thursday.)

*: May or may not have actually happened.

So we’re one trip through the rotation, which is the perfect time to form wildly premature opinions on the Royals so far. Here’s a special Small Sample Size Edition of Short Attention Span Theatre:

- By far the best development of the season’s first five games is Kyle Davies’ performance on Thursday. Seven shutout innings, eight strikeouts, a Game Score of 77 which was not only the third-best of his career, but one of the ten best Game Scores by a Royal since 2005. You don’t want to read too much off of just one start – Brett Tomko had a Game Score of 78 in one of his starts last year – but coming off of his September last year, you factor in his performance, his stuff, his age, his pedigree…this looks for all the world like a talented thrower putting it all together and becoming a pitcher. Remember, the Royals got Davies (who won’t be a free agent until after 2011) in exchange for eight innings of Octavio Dotel. Dayton Moore has done a lot of maddening things as a GM – we’ll get to some of that – but a move like Dotel-for-Davies has the potential to make up for all of those things by itself. Keep in mind, a lot of us wanted Moore to trade Dotel for the Mariners’ Wladimir Balentien (assuming that offer was in fact on the table). Balentien still has a lot of potential, but at this moment I suspect almost all of us are glad we have Davies instead.

- Davies’ performance merely capped off an insanely good performance from the three starters that we’re actually counting on for good performances this season. Meche, Greinke, and Davies combined to allow one run and strike out 21 in 20 innings in their first start. As Bradford Doolittle pointed out, the combined Game Score of the first three starts (212) was better than the best three-game span (211, May 3-5) last season. In fact, the last time the Royals had three consecutive starts that combined for a higher Game Score (218) was August 4-6, 2004, when Brian Anderson threw a two-hit shutout to start things off, Greinke went seven innings allowing three hits and a single run the next night, and Darrell May threw seven strong innings, allowing six hits and three runs in the finale. So the Royals started 2009 with the best three-game stretch by their starters in nearly five years.

- I’m not going to tell you what the worst development of the young season is, but here’s a hint: it has scored eight runs in five games. There’s not much to analyze, really. The Royals aren’t hitting for average (.198). They’re not hitting for power (two homers in five games). They’re not commanding the strike zone at all (10 walks, 48 strikeouts). Of the nine guys in the Opening Day lineup, the only one hitting over .240 is Mark Teahen; the only one slugging over .360 is Coco Crisp. Yes, it’s early. The air is a lot colder and heavier than it was in Arizona, and I’m sure they’re still getting used to it. They’ve faced some of the best starters in the American League every time out; the worst starter they’ve seen is arguably the guy they saw on Opening Day, Mark Buehrle. But all these excuses are going to wear awfully thin awfully fast if they don’t put up a three-spot somewhere.

- Put it this way: the Royals haven’t scored three runs in a game yet. Through Saturday, every other team in baseball (except for Houston) had scored at least three runs in an inning.

- If you’re looking for me to say something snarky about Sidney Ponson, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you. The end result (four runs in six innings) wasn’t good, but in light of the opponent in front of him and the defense behind him, it wasn’t half-bad either. I was able to watch him from the second through the fourth innings, and his ability to move his fastball to both sides of the plate was impressive. If he continues to throw like that, the results will come. But I never had an issue with Ponson in the rotation – my issue was with Hochevar not being in the rotation. We can win with Ponson as our #5 starter. We can’t win if he’s our #4 starter, especially if our #5 starter is…

- Horacio Ramirez, and if you’re looking for me to say something snarky about him, I might disappoint you, but only because it’s shooting fish in a barrel. This is the side of Dayton Moore that just baffles me. How do you give this guy nearly $2 million to be in your rotation when 1) he hasn’t pitched remotely well in anyone’s rotation since 2006, and 2) no one else wanted him in their rotation at all, let alone was willing to fork over seven figures for the privilege? There are many, many aspects to being a GM that I would positively suck at, but if the Royals ever advertise for the position of Assistant GM: Common Sense, I’m definitely throwing my hat in the ring. Even Hillman’s brain fart with Kyle Farnsworth only cost us one game – Moore’s signing of Ramirez has the potential to be a hemorrhoid on the Royals all season. The good news is that in Hochevar’s first start (which came in the thin air of Albuquerque), he gave up two runs - one earned - in five innings. Ramirez won’t be needed as a starter again until the 25th; let’s hope that by then Hochevar has answered whatever questions the Royals had about him, and Ramirez goes back to the lefty reliever role that Bob McClure had him thriving in last summer.

- Speaking of Kyle Farnsworth, I was a bit surprised that he got booed as loudly as he was when he was introduced before the home opener. I guess our patience has been tried a few too many times over the years. He went on to strike out the side in his one inning of work, and afterwards credited the difference to a mechanical change. McClure way well be able to work a miracle with him; Farnsworth did have a 2.19 ERA in 70 innings in 2005. But I think I speak for all Royals fans when I say we’d like to see him prove he’s a changed man – let’s say he doesn’t give up another homer between now and mid-May – before we’d entrust him with another eighth-inning lead.

- Jose Guillen’s hip injury came at an awfully opportune time, don’t you think? For all the talk about how the Royals wanted to give him two weeks off to make sure he doesn’t aggravate his injury in the cold weather, one aspect of the decision to DL him that I haven’t seen talked about is this: by putting Guillen on the DL before 3 o’clock on Friday, the Royals were able to give Brayan Pena a reprieve for at least the next 15 days. Pena was almost certainly the guy to get demoted when Ponson was activated, and even if he had cleared waivers, Pena had the option to decline the assignment to Omaha and declare free agency. It’s hard to think that he wouldn’t, given that the Royals already have two catchers they can’t find enough playing time for. Pena is an interesting player, and it’s easy to understand why the Royals would want to keep him around.

- Of course, keeping Pena around is pointless if you’re not going to, you know, take advantage of his presence. And on that note, Hillman’s lineups the last two days leave something to be desired. The Royals have faced southpaws in their last two games, and while they certainly missed Guillen’s bat, they could have gone a long way towards replacing it by finding lineup spots for both Miguel Olivo and John Buck – something Hillman had no qualms about doing last year even with no third catcher on the roster. Instead, Hillman insisted on starting Jacobs against two of the better lefties in baseball. Jacobs went 2-for-6 against Pettitte and Sabathia, but one of the two hits was a gift double that Nick Swisher lost in the sun.

- Hillman’s decision to keep Jacobs in the lineup pales to his weird second base/right field shenanigans. On Friday he moved Teahen out to right field and played Callaspo at second base. The temptation to move Teahen back to his natural position in Guillen’s absence is understandable: it definitely helps the defense in the short term. The question is whether it hurts Teahen’s chances to get used to his new position in the long term; so long as they continue to work with him – and so long as they plan to move him back once Guillen returns – I think this is a trade-off worth making. But today, Teahen had the day off (at least until Gordon’s hip problem forced Teahen to move to yet another position), and Hillman decided to play Callaspo at second base and the Spork in right field. Setting aside the calamity that is having Bloomquist in the starting lineup, I don’t understand why Hillman wouldn’t reverse the two. Callaspo may not be the world’s greatest outfielder, but then neither is Bloomquist, so why not at least make sure that your best second baseman is playing second base, especially with a groundball pitcher on the mound?

- Let’s take a deep breath. The Royals may have only eight runs in five games, but they’re still 2-3, and the division is shaping up to be every bit as mediocre as we thought it would be. The Indians, who were the popular favorite to win the division, are 0-5; reigning Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee has been hit hard twice, and third starter (!) Carl Pavano gave up nine runs in an inning-plus. The Royals are half a game out of first. There is no reason to panic.

- Alex Gordon and Billy Butler have combined to go 3-for-32, with two walks and 11 strikeouts. It goes without saying, but bears repeating: if they – and the rest of the lineup – don’t get it together soon, then we might have reason to panic.

Zack the Redeemer.

(rickreilly)

Three years ago, Zack Greinke left the game to deal with his issues with anxiety. Today, Greinke came to rescue us from our own.

(/rickreilly)

If yesterday revealed in bold detail the pitfalls that await the Royals on their way to being contenders, today was a reminder as to why so many of us believe that contention isn’t such a pipe dream this year.

I couldn’t wait to wash the bad taste from Opening Day out of my mouth, but I couldn’t help but worry that I was about to replace the salty tang of anger with the bitter taste of despair. Sparky Anderson always said that “momentum is tomorrow’s starting pitcher”, but was tomorrow’s starter the Zack Greinke we know and love, or the Greinke that was 0-6 with a 7.78 ERA at U.S. Cellular Field? (Many of you might remember the last time I saw Greinke pitch up here. I certainly do, despite months of therapy.)

Instead, we got Greinke’s first salvo in the Cy Young race. Six brilliant innings. Strikeouts of seven different hitters. Three harmless singles. A key double play to put the brakes on the White Sox’ one solid rally. A Carlos Quentin HBP that may or may not have been intentional, but either way reminded the Sox that they can’t hit two of our batters (as they did on Tuesday) and not expect retaliation.

You all know how I feel about Greinke – I’m certainly not impartial, and I’m barely rational. But I could not have asked for a better start from him than the one he gave tonight. If he can put aside five years of futility in this ballpark and deliver six shutout innings on a night with no margin for error and the Royals needing a big win…well, let’s just say I can’t wait to see what he does with his 33 remaining starts.

Trey Hillman, coming off one of his worst performances as a handler of the pitching staff, was as flawless as Greinke in that regard. Zack finished the sixth having thrown 93 pitches, and in my own mind I was conflicted as to whether he should be left out there for another inning. On the one hand, it was his first start of the year, a cool night in Chicago, and as effective as he had been, he had allowed at least one baserunner in every inning but the first – I didn’t think this was a good night to let him approach 110 pitches. On the other, the Royals had a two-run lead with nine outs to go, and as long as Greinke wasn’t tired, he was better than anyone else that the Royals might bring into the game. My feeling was, let him start the inning, but pull him at the first sign of any trouble.

His first pitch to Jermaine Dye was up in the zone. His second was drilled to center for a single, and as fast as Rob Neyer could IM me “uh-oh”, Hillman was on the mound taking the ball away. Juan Cruz came in, and watching him pitch only made Hillman’s decision to go with Farnsworth yesterday even more mystifying. I mean, Cruz doesn’t just throw hard, his pitches move. Nothing is straight, and coming from that low three-quarters motion, he ought to be just death on right-handed hitters.

Cruz breezed through the next three batters to strand Dye, and Hillman made another shrewd move in the eighth, leaving Cruz in for a second inning. This is another one of those areas where the trend towards more conservative usage of pitchers has gone too far: you rarely see relievers throw multiple innings anymore. Well, you do, but it’s almost always the mop-up relievers and swingmen trying to save the rest of the bullpen – in other words, the worst relievers are the ones throwing the most innings. Cruz appeared in 57 games last season, but just six times was he used to get more than three outs – and he pitched two full innings in a game just once. That’s how one of the Diamondbacks’ best relievers threw just 52 innings all season.

Thanks to Hillman, Cruz matched that total of two-inning appearances tonight, and was as awesome – six up, six down – as Farnsworth was awful. Cruz actually threw fewer pitches (21) in his two innings than Farnsworth did (24) in his one. I’d like to think that means he’s available if the Royals have a lead to preserve in the eighth inning tomorrow; realistically, it looks like it will be Ron Mahay’s turn on Hillman’s merry-go-round.

Joakim Soria finished things off in the ninth, ending the game on an absolutely ridiculous curveball to Dye. Quentin and Thome had both made outs on 2-1 pitches, so when Soria worked the count to 2-2 on Dye, it was clear that the Mexicutioner was about to unleash the Guillotine, as I call his vicious (and delicious) slow curveball that he dispatches his victims with. I knew it was coming, you knew it, I imagine Dye knew it, and we all knew that there was nothing Dye could do about it anyway.

Except late last year hitters started to expect that pitch with two strikes, and they learned to spit on it as Soria bounced it in the dirt, forcing him to adjust. The Sox have seen him as much as anyone, so I figured that Soria would be better off not trying to bury the pitch, but instead starting it high and keeping it in the strike zone.

He did me one better – he started it up in Dye’s eyes, but as it dropped it also made a left turn, and by the time it hit Olivo’s glove it was down and away. Dye could have stood up there with a cricket bat, a tennis racket, or a cello and there was no way he was hitting that pitch. It was beautiful.

Hillman did spotless work with his pitchers, but he still needs to be dinged for his, ahem, strange approach to late-inning defense. I was so upset about the usage of Farnsworth yesterday that I didn’t even bother to mention the fact that in the eighth inning, with a one-run lead, Mark Teahen was still playing second base in his first game ever at the position, while Willie Bloomquist sat on the bench.

Well tonight, in the eighth inning, Bloomquist finally came in for defense…in right field. Somehow, with Bloomquist and Teahen both on the field, Hillman decided that the best defensive arrangement was to have Teahen at second base and Bloomquist in right field, not the other way around. (Remember, this is the same guy who last year, in the game where the Royals blew a five-run lead in the ninth, had Teahen at first and Ross Gload in right field. And one of the key hits in the inning fell just in front of Gload.)

I can’t argue with the results. With one out in the eighth, the speedy DeWayne Wise hit a grounder just to the right of the second base bag. I would have bet anything that Teahen, ranging far to his right, would have mishandled the ball – and when he came up with it and fired to first base, I would have bet anything that his throw was way offline. Instead, it was a picture-perfect play that got Wise out by about three steps. I can’t argue with the results, but I can still argue with the execution. I’m as hopeful as anyone that Teahen can turn into a quality defensive player at second base, but let’s see him prove it first before leaving him there with a small lead to protect in the late innings.

The brilliance of the pitching allows us to overlook, for now, another meager output from the offense. The Royals are 1-1 despite scoring just two runs in each game…and could easily be 2-0. Much like last April, the Royals have done a good job of winning when they get even a little offense – but getting even a little offense is turning into a chore.

For now, momentum is Kyle Davies. If Davies laissez les bon temps roulez and the Royals win tomorrow, Hillman’s shenanigans on Opening Day will be overshadowed by the team’s winning record. If Cruz quickly replaces Farnsworth in the pecking order of Royals’ relievers, those shenanigans may even be forgotten some day.

xxx

Don’t look for me to post anything tomorrow, so consider this your open thread to discuss my first radio show tomorrow night. Feel free to critique, criticize, or just plain make fun of me here.

Opening Day, And The Gloves Come Off.

And now I know why God, in His infinite wisdom, did not want me to attend Opening Day.

I am, as many of you know, a rather patient baseball fan. I am a rather forgiving baseball fan. I would not have survived as a Royals fan if I was not.

Last year, no one was the beneficiary of my patience and my forgiving nature than Trey Hillman. Whether it was his ridiculous dressing-down of his players on the field at the end of a meaningless spring-training game, or the way he talked up the importance of OBP all spring even as his players set an all-time franchise low in walks, I defended him well past the point of reason. I figured that anyone who had just taken the Nippon Ham Fighters, the Royals of Japanese baseball, to two Japan Series and one championship must have some idea what he is doing, and after years of watching managers who had no idea what they’re doing, I was prepared to give some leeway to a manager with an actual history of success on his resume.

The free pass is over.

The shame is that there are so many positives to take from this game. Gil Meche was brilliant once again, getting through seven innings in just 91 pitches, striking out six without a walk, and getting out of a bases-loaded, none-out jam in the second with just one run scoring. After Mike Jacobs turned a routine groundball into a double (excuse me…a “double”) in the fourth, Meche retired Carlos Quentin and Jim Thome to get out of the inning. David DeJesus showed off the improved outfield defense with his arm instead of his glove, killing two baserunners and taking at least one run off the board. Kevin Seitzer was in line for a game ball after both Jose Guillen and Mike Aviles walked (did those two ever walk in the same game last year?), both of them working their way back from a two-strike count against Mark Buehrle. Gordon homered. Teahen doubled and walked and didn’t kill anyone while playing second base.

If the Royals hadn’t held a lead going into the late innings, the story of the game might have been the team’s inability to hit with runners on base. The Royals stranded 11 men on base, and were 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position. But how a team hits in those situations over the span of one game is meaningless; what matters is that the Royals were getting guys into scoring position in the first place. And thanks to Meche, the Royals were in excellent position to win the game despite their futility with RISP.

Until the eighth. Until the inning that Hillman had just yesterday designated as Kyle Farnsworth’s inning, a decision that I suppose was inevitable in spite of, or perhaps precisely because of, the fact that it completely defies common sense.

Look for veteran Kyle Farnsworth to get the ball today in the eighth inning — instead of Juan Cruz or Ron Mahay — if the Royals are looking to bridge a lead to closer Joakim Soria.

“With the effectiveness that he’s shown (in spring training),” manager Trey Hillman said, “it would probably be Kyle. But those three guys can rotate between the seventh and eighth on any given day.

“One of those guys, probably Cruz or Mahay, could default to the sixth if we needed that.”

There wasn’t a Royals fan in the country who didn’t hold their breath when they read that passage on the eve of Opening Day.

Trey Hillman named Kyle Farnsworth his primary set-up man instead of Juan Cruz.

Kyle Farnsworth, he of the 4.48 ERA last year, and the 4.80 ERA the year before that, and the 4.36 ERA the year before that, over Juan Cruz, who had a 2.61 ERA last year, a 3.10 ERA the year before that, a 4.18 ERA the year before that.

Farnsworth, who surrendered 15 home runs in 60 innings last year (pitching for the Yankees and Tigers, two teams that play in pitcher’s parks) over Cruz, who surrendered 5 home runs in 52 innings last year (pitching for the Diamondbacks, who play in one of the game’s best hitter’s parks.)

There is no fathomable reason to think that Kyle Farnsworth is a better pitcher than Juan Cruz. None. And any reason that Hillman might proffer serves only to denigrate the intellect of the man proffering it. Before today’s game, I had been told that Hillman decided on Farnsworth in part because he pitched better during the final week of spring training. That excuse – and I hesitate to sully the fine name of the term “excuse” by associating it with Hillman’s thought process here – is both inexplicable and totally absurd. Which is to say, it makes as much sense as any other excuse that Hillman could have offered for his decision.

And it actually makes more sense than the other possible reason Hillman might have had: that Hillman arranged his bullpen hierarchy not based on performance, but based on salary. It’s a fact that Farnsworth was signed for more money than Cruz. It’s also completely meaningless, unless you’re using that information to evaluate Dayton Moore’s skills as a GM. If Hillman decided that he needed to justify the fact that one reliever is making $4.5 million a year and the other one is making $3 million a year – or if Moore is forcing Hillman to make that decision – as far as I’m concerned, that’s a fireable offense.

Juan Cruz has been the better reliever for at least three years. Dayton Moore signed him, at the cost of a draft pick, precisely because he was an upgrade on what the Royals had in terms of a bridge to Joakim Soria. How Hillman could have settled on Farnsworth to be his eighth-inning guy and decided that Cruz “could default to the sixth if we needed that” defies explanation.

Does Hillman even know that Farnsworth, whatever his assets are, is incredibly vulnerable to the home run? Does he know that U.S. Cellular Field is one of the best home run parks in baseball? Does he know anything?

It’s bad enough that Hillman brought Farnsworth in to protect a one-run lead in the bottom of the eighth inning. Worse still, he left him in. He left him in after Josh Fields led off with a bunt single. He left him in after Chris Getz singled with one out to put the tying run on third.

He probably felt pretty good about leaving Farnsworth in when Carlos Quentin struck out and kept Fields ninety feet away. That’s why the Royals spent $9 million on a pitcher that few other teams wanted at half that price: they wanted the guy who could get a strikeout when a strikeout was needed. Never mind that Farnsworth badly needed a strikeout because of a mess of his own making, or that Cruz has a better strikeout rate than Farnsworth.

So that brought Jim Thome to the plate. Jim Thome, who had hit 42 home runs against the Royals in his career, more than any other player in history (Rafael Palmeiro had hit 41.) Two men on, two out, one of the most feared left-handed hitters in the league at the plate.

Does Hillman bring in Juan Cruz at this point, because he’s, you know, a better pitcher? No, but fine, that ship has sailed.

Does he bring in Ron Mahay to get a key left-handed hitter out? In his career, Thome has hit .296/.431/.620 against RHP – against southpaws, those numbers drop to .240/.342/.442. He’s basically Barry Bonds against right-handers, and Casey Blake against left-handers. Mahay only needs to get one out before it’s Mexicutioner time. How about it? No.

Well, how about Soria himself? Didn’t we just hear Hillman talk about how he was going to use Soria to get four or five outs a lot more this year? What better time to use Soria in the eighth than on Opening Day, when he hasn’t thrown a pitch since Saturday? Keep in mind that Soria, much like his doppelganger Mariano Rivera, has a reverse platoon split – he’s been more effective against left-handed hitters (.167/.242/.255) than right-handed hitters (.188/.251/.264) in his career. If ever there was a time to call upon Soria in the eighth inning, it’s this situation, right? No.

No. We’d much rather break out the deer rifle to measure just how far Jim Thome can hit a fastball that’s thrown incredibly hard and incredibly straight.

Farnsworth threw the pitch, but he’s no higher than third on the list of people who should be blamed for this. It’s not his fault that Dayton Moore offered him $9 million to sign. It’s not his fault that Hillman brought him in to pitch the eighth inning when better options abounded, then left him out there even as his margin for error grew smaller and smaller.

The Rany of a year ago would have cut Hillman some slack for this. “He made a mistake,” he would have said, “but he’ll learn from this. Let’s see who he calls upon the next time the Royals have a one-run lead in the eighth. If Cruz gets the call, then chalk this up as an expensive but useful lesson for Hillman, that the guy with the ERA in the 2s is generally better than the guy with the ERA in the 4s.”

That Rany is gone. He’s fed up. He’s watched Trey Hillman make enough dumb decisions with his bullpen (like this one). He watched as Trey Hillman lost the clubhouse, the cardinal sin for any manager, last August before he was rescued by the team’s improbable 18-8 run in September. And he’s decided that whatever Hillman accomplished in Japan, it means absolutely nothing if he can’t perform third-grade math in his head, the kind of math that says the guy with the 2.61 ERA last year is better than the guy with the 4.48 ERA.

The worst part of all this is that we all saw it coming. Every last one of us knew from the moment they read Hillman’s words about keeping Farnsworth in the eighth-inning role that it would cost the Royals dearly at some point. We didn’t know it would be Opening Day, against one of our chief rivals, with the justice meted out by one of our greatest nemeses. But we knew it was coming. With the Royals, no bad decision ever goes unpunished.

Here’s a memo for you, Trey: Kyle Farnsworth is NOT NOT NOT a quality set-up man. Juan Cruz is.

Oh, and here’s another one: never underestimate the power of common sense.

If the reasons why Juan Cruz is better than Kyle Farnsworth can be understood by a six-year-old, then no amount of extenuating circumstances, like who looked better in a meaningless ballgame in March, ought to change that fact.

Maybe Hillman will learn from this immediately and anoint Cruz as his top set-up man, or maybe he’ll need to cough up a few more games first. What happened on Opening Day was the ultimate example of what behavioral psychologists call “negative feedback”, and you’d think that would be enough to learn. (Even lab rats know that if you shock them every time they press a lever, they should stop pressing the lever.) But Hillman shouldn’t have needed the negative feedback of a game-winning three-run homer to learn. If he’s not smart to figure out on his own that Juan Cruz is a better reliever than Kyle Farnsworth, he’s probably not smart enough to realize that if Decision A leads to Outcome B, the best way to avoid Outcome B again is to stop making Decision A.

Regardless of whether he learns or not, Hillman is getting no slack with me this year. He cost us this game, plain and simple. He cost us a two-game swing in the standings with a divisional rival. The odds that the outcome of this game – the outcome of Hillman’s decision – keeps the Royals out of the postseason are something like 1%. Think about that: it’s still Opening Day, and there’s a one-in-a-hundred shot that the Royals just blew the division.

What else is there to say? I’m tired of getting sarcastic emails on the Baseball Prospectus email list with subject lines that go “Trey Hillman, Supergenius” – emails from people who are not Royals fans, but are just so offended by dumb managerial decisions that they felt compelled to discuss what Hillman did with other non-Royals fans. I’m tired of getting trash-talking text messages from friends who root for the White Sox. I’m tired of losing games that should have been won, wasting performances that should have been celebrated, and starting the season with that pit in my stomach that says, “here we go again,” and it’s still Opening Day.

Most of all, I’m tired of watching the Royals shoot themselves in the foot. God knows we have enough of an uphill climb if we want to contend. We can’t control the size of our payroll or the size of our market, but dammit, we can control the quality of our decisions. We can’t outspend our opponents, but is it too much to ask that we outsmart them? Or at least that we don’t outdumb them?

Instead, Trey Hillman made arguably the worst decision made by any of the 30 major league managers in their first game, and it cost his team the game. Worse, that decision was pre-meditated.

Thank God there’s another game tomorrow, and a fresh chance for the Royals to prove that this year really is different. It’s also another chance for Trey Hillman to prove whether he really has the chops to be a manager in the major leagues. I’ll be watching, with jaded eyes.