Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Ugh

That was fun for about an hour.

• Raise your hand if you thought Lima-Time could hold that lead. I didn’t think so.

• Looking back at Lima-Time’s starts in the month of May, here is the damage:

5/1: Blew a five run lead at Cleveland
5/7: Lost at Baltimore
5/12: Blew a five run lead vs. Tampa Bay
5/17: Blew a six run lead vs. Baltimore

Despite Lima’s best attempts the Royals are 2-2 in his last four starts, but the Royals have to be wondering what in the world is going on. Here he is, getting run support that would make Zack Greinke jealous, and every time out he’s blowing it. I think the time has come for the Royals to show Lima the door.

• Is there a pitcher who has underachieved more than the Orioles Sidney Ponson? I realize he has had more than his share of off-field trouble lately, but he was just awful Tuesday. He was leaving the ball up in the zone to almost every batter he faced and the Royals were taking advantage. Truly, the last thing I wanted to see was for Matt Stairs to tag Ponson with a batted ball up the middle but that’s the way the season has been going. O’s manager Lee Mazzilli was quick with the hook and aside from a couple of walks to force in Ponson’s runners, the Royals didn’t score for the rest of the night.

• As bad as Ponson was, the pitchers behind him were great.

Orioles bullpen: 7.2 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 4 BB, 9 SO

Compare that to the Royals bullpen.

Royals bullpen: 6 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 3 BB, 4 SO

• The super-happy-funtime that is Angel Berroa on the bases continued Tuesday. In the second inning, he tagged up at second on a fly ball to left. Hmmm. OK, the ball was deep, but still...Then he scored when Stairs nailed Ponson with the comebacker. Watching replays of Berroa on third, he hesitated for just a brief moment before coming down the line so I don’t think he was going on contact, which makes his break for the plate even more unbelievable. But Ponson couldn’t make a good throw from about 45 feet and Berroa was safe. Since Berroa was successful on both of his crazy baserunning plays, let’s call it “creative.” If he’s out, we can call it “stupid.”

• John Buck struck out with one out and the bases loaded in the second inning. I don’t mean to pick on Buck, but he needs to figure out what he’s doing at the plate and soon. He was 0-3 last night with three strikeouts and is now at .173/.226/.276 on the season. He now has more strikeouts than total bases. It’s like last July all over again for him.

• Mike Sweeney is supposed to return to the lineup Wednesday. Of course, he was supposed to return Tuesday so at this point let’s just say we’ll believe it when we see it.

• Do you think if Greinke and Lima swapped jersey numbers, Zack would get some run support?

1 Comments:

At 2:39 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

That Buck K took a lot of the momentum out of the team. The relief pitcher had just walked two batters and thrown a wild pitch, so naturally Buck swings at the first pitch which just happened to be down at his ankles. I don't think one pitch during his at bat would have been a called strike. The pitch he struck out on was the same as the first pitch. Just an absolute horrible AB.

I thought Berroa tagging from 2nd to third was aggresive and would have not been upset had he been thrown out. The LF made a catch going away from the infield so he had to stop, turn, and throw which gave Berroa plenty of time to make it to third. In that situation if the ball drops for a hit he can score from 2nd base easily, so he should be close to the bag to keep the ability to tag up alive.

Maybe every pitcher should wear Lima's number so we score a ton of runs every game.

 

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