LOL - I'm sooooo hoping Farnsworth comes in! :cool:

Yep... looks like the Meche deal was actually a very good deal.

Wow. We just got really, really, really lucky

SI

You're still just mad at that "nondescript large market" team comment I made last week ;)

SI

ESPN - OTL: Dream On A Shelf - E-ticket

Crazy story on Matt Harrington, how he turned down 4.5 mil and now makes 11.50 an hour.

Of course, Hillman spits in the face of lady luck and goes Grady Little on Meche. He was done (even tho he had 16 in a row retired, he was losing some speed on pitches) but left him in and now it's 2-2.

SI

Not really. I actually like the Royals (except when they're playing the Tigers). I just thought it was funny that you assumed your manager would do the right thing when he's been a punching bag for the baseball writers/bloggers for making so many stupid decisions this year.

And I stand corrected:

G. Meche

7.1

5

4

3

0

7

0

Good job, Hillman. I'm not one to usually blast the manager, but that's 3 games this year directly lost due to bullpen management. If you really wanted to be damning to him, you could put 2 more games at his feet.

SI

Nice win for the Tribe! :popcorn: ;)

It's so unfair that Meche gets tagged for those runs after the game he pitched. He had 16 straight retired before he went out for the ill fated 8th and shouldn't have even been in there. The heat on Hillman is about to strongly intensify.

SI

Although I'll always be happy the Phillies won it all in 2008, you know 2009 is probably not your year when you're getting no-hit by David FUCKING Bush!

I gotta think so. Even if they don't make a move this year if the team is in contention, lets say 3 AL Central teams win between 82 and 86 games. You will probably be able to pin enough losses on Hillman to justify the idea that the Royals should have won the division, and that would be enough for me to dump him. Although, to be fair about Farnsworth, as a GM you don't go out and overpay for a reliever and expect your manager to immediately stick him in "6th inning, behind by 4 runs" duty. So part of that is on Moore, too.

Definitely. No one liked that move at the time. But you still can't keep going to that well to define the season, offseason, or complete GM's regime. It was a bad move and it goes down in the "loss" column of Moore's ledger but he still has more wins than losses in that book at this point in time.

There are 24 other guys on the team and 39 others on the 40-man (actually, I think we have 38 currently, but you get my point). So, the GM has a blind spot for a player- I'm pretty sure that's already been wiped out in a couple of weeks and this game had nothing to do with him.

This game has nothing to do with Farnsworth and it's, again, been enough games where Hillman has been too key of a figure in too many losses (5 of 7) already that he's in dangerous waters. I doubt they'll get rid of him in-season. But I wonder if that's even true as the Royals brought in John Gibbons, the former Jays manager, to be bench coach this past offseason so they have a "suitable" interim manager handy.

SI

Assuming Hochaver returns to the rotation soon, we likely will have our best rotation since the year we won the World Series. Meche, Greinke, Davis, Bannister, and Hochaver is an AWFULLY strong rotation. Judging from the huge crowds expected this weekend, the fans are excited as well.

whats the story with Hammels, did he get pulled for injury?

I caught the last 5 minutes of Soren's show after the game. He is absolutely right that the game tomorrow moves from 10K+ walkups and a possible sellout to maybe 5K. With people's opinions still forming, a loss like this can easily move those fairweather hesitant fans from "wow, we're excited" to "same old Royals".

SI

For anybody interested, Dave Bush is having a "very good game" in the 8th inning of the Brewers/Phillies game.

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels leaves game after being struck in shoulder - ESPN

PHILADELPHIA -- Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels left Thursday's series finale against the Milwaukee Brewers after being struck in the shoulder by a line drive.

One pitch after Hamels gave up a two-run homer to Ryan Braun in the fourth inning, Prince Fielder laced an infield single that hit Hamels in the front of his left shoulder.

Trainers immediately tended to Hamels, who left the game with what the team called a left shoulder contusion. He was replaced by J.A. Happ.

Hamels was the MVP of the 2008 NL Championship Series and World Series but is off to a rough start this season. He had an 11.17 ERA through his first two starts.

He had cruised through the first three innings Thursday, striking out six of the nine batters he faced.

He got hit on the left shoulder by a line drive.

Stairs hit a HR to break it up.

Damn... after Billy Hall made that play I thought the recipe was complete for a no hitter.

Matt Stairs says otherwise.

And, you know, after a little bit of time to think about it- Hillman didn't necessarily make the wrong call. I'm just going to be lazy and cut and paste a response to another poster's post over a Royals Review since it sums up my thoughts:



SI

Reds preparing to shut the door on a 7-3 road trip. They were one of the worst road teams in baseball last year, so there is cause for excitement and celebration in Cincinnati.

Reds and Pirates both making it interesting early in the NL Central.

Cubs bullpen is going to be the death of them.

Still pissed they didn't even bother to offer a contract to Kerry Wood.

Their four through eight hitters are batting:

.146
.239
.184
.205
.125

I don't know whether I should be excited for how good they'll be when they start hitting or depressed at how bad they'll be if the pitching falters.

If you're a fan of pitching then this Angels/Tigs series has not been for you. Wow this is bad stuff.

That story blew my mind. He's kind of a sacrificial lamb of the player's union - you need a couple of guys like that out there so owners can know, in the back of their minds - maybe the guy won't sign, even if he has no leverage. Owners need to know (from the players' perspective) that an agent COULD walk away, even if his client has no other option.

I don't feel bad for him at all though. At some point he could have called any of those teams and got a low-money level over his agent's head.

Yeah, not pretty.

In case Tigers fans are wondering who the hell Matt Palmer is, here was the Angels starting pitching depth chart going into spring.

1. John Lackey (DL)
2. Ervin Santana (DL)
3. Joe Saunders
4. Jered Weaver
5. Kelvim Escobar (DL)
6. Dustin Moseley (DL)
7. Nick Adenhart (deceased :( )
8. Shane Loux
9. Darren Oliver (DL)
10. Anthony Ortega (off to bad start at AAA)
11. Sean O'Sullivan (off to bad start at AAA)
12. Rich Thompson (needed in pen)
13. Talk to Pedro's agent...
14. Talk to the Pads about Peavy
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
100. Palmer

Oh, and for the kids counting at home, Palmer is pitcher #4 of the rotation now. I don't think the Angels have even announced which rabbit they're pulling out of their hat for Saturday's game.

Yes, I like to think I have a somewhat decent pulse about other teams and when I heard Palmer, I was clueless. He of course shut us down.

Oh, damn, Figgy just owned the Tigers, lol...

I have a fantastic feel for the pulse of this team, and I DIDN'T HAVE A CLUE WHO HE WAS. ;)

Of course, last week, we brought up some guy named Daniel Davidson to help fill out the pen, suffering from both injuries and ineffectiveness. Not only did I not know who he was, the Angels radio announcers admitted, on air, that they didn't know who he was either.

Helluva bunt by Figgins. It's absurd how many infield hits the Angels have had this series. Just unreal.

You know, I know he is disliked by Tigers fans, and home run aside, it hasn't been a good night for Inge (two errors, and a scorer's decision "deprived" him of a third). But if they don't want him, I would take Inge on an Angels team.

This is a typical Inge night which is why he such a polarizing figure. He makes all these amazing plays, then has two boneheaded plays, and goes yard.

It's a little more too then just him opening his mouth, it's that his detractors are vocal, and his supporters are vocal, and that is probably a 50/50 split of all Tigs fans so around here it's constant bitching back and forth.

I like him when he shuts up and plays, which so far he has. And now that he finaly took coaching he has a much better swing and looks like a competent big league hitter.

I just hope he keeps it up and I'll be the first to admit I was wrong.

Agreed. While it is something they are good at, with their contact ability and general team speed, the amount of them have been a little mind-boggling this series.

This isn't a good spot for the Tigers. Even when they were among the top teams in 2006-07, they struggled in Anaheim. Not that there's any shame in that, but the Tigers' record here is really poor. Like the Angels going to Tampa Bay or Toronto. We always struggle in those place, and that was before last year, too.

With what this team's been going through, I'll take whatever infield hits we can get. We need the room anyway to hopefully put it out of reach for our pen to blow.

Ugh I keep thinking back to that game, and I forgot now if it was last year or the year before, then Todd Jones comes in for some reason in a 7 or 8 run game and just blew up and we lost.

Anaheim and the White Sox just abuse us. The former is fine, but it's even worse with the latter when we play damn near 20 times a year.

Yeah, I have heard he can get mouthy, and that is one thing I don't like (and can understand others not diggin' on).

The Angels' radio announcers were talking about him yesterday, said late last year he finally switched to a bat high type stance or maybe a foot in the bucket style a la Brian Downing of old (I forget), and that he has made much more consistent contact since then.

Oh, Gawd, I remember that one. It was early in the season, maybe 2006? I think Kenny Rogers was having a great game that night, and Magglio hit two or something like that. And it all fell apart in the ninth. Didn't we score the winning run on a squeeze play or something? That game was crazy.

Well Inge is a competitor but he was pissed in 2004 when we signed Pudge and he lost his catching gig. Then we get Miguel Cabrera and he is pissed about that.

I mean come on.

Yep. Ugh. I remember going to coach a hockey game and we were up huge, and when I come out, we're going to Extras.

The only good thing about coming to Anaheim is Granderson explodes, and he needed it this series because he was scuffling. Too bad he can't hit third. Instead we have Magglio who hasn't hit an XBH yet. Ugh.

Heh, well, yeah, he shouldn't be griping about not playing when you bring in stars like that. But I can see why he would get pissy, considering wasn't he one of the few decent players on that horrid 2003 team? He probably felt he established his role.

I guess he got his wish, since Cabrera's at 1B now.

No XBH for Magglio? We got one of those. Magglio, meet Abreu. Not sure what that's about. Both of those guys don't lack for power.

Granderson, man, I love that guy. He's a keeper. Speed and power. Seems like a good guy. Definitely someone to keep around. I love it when I can get him on my fantasy team.

Jays active pitching staff:
Rotation: Halladay, Purcey, Richmond, Tallet, ? (Guessing Cecil gets called up)
Closer: Downs

Pitchers on IR:
Rotation: McGowan, Marcum, Janssen, Romero
Closer: Ryan

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn

5 days ago, the 5 hole batter was hitting about .180 and 7-8 were both hitting sub-.100. They have improved.

Maybe you can get Chacin back.

I was hopeful they could limp the staff along until it was a realistic time to go after a rental SP to get them through the season, but this is getting ridiculous. Thank goodness for the hot start and hopefully the bats continue to show the influence Cito and his staff have had, but it's only so long before the bullpen will start to fatigue. Hopefully Janssen, Litsch and Romero can both get back relatively soon and bolster both the rotation and the pen.

Yeah, the last I heard, he had been drafted 4 or 5 times and turned them all down and was working at Best Buy.

Ryan on the DL is a good thing, for now.

Some nobody got called up instead of Cecil.

No thanks.