No More Gload
Well, the Ross Gload era officially ended yesterday, as the Royals sent him and 1.5 of his 1.9 million dollar salary to the Florida Marlins for a PTBNL. Checking out the blogs I frequent, I was somewhat surprised to see so many intelligent people sad to see him gone. Ross Gload was awful, he was pegged as a defensive player but had many lapses where he would not pay attention at all on defense. (An attempted pickoff from Gil Meche (I think) where Gload was asleep and almost got nailed in the face comes to mind. He was a "high average" hitter who never hit above .288 as a Royal. And he was left handed. While that is good, or at least is usually good as a hitter, it severly limits the positions you can play, and as a bench player, limits your usefulness. Ross Gload was pegged as a decent outfielder, but I personally cringed every time I saw his name penciled in to play there. Sure, we may get nothing good back, (I was hoping for Robert Andino before I saw he had been traded for Hayden Penn already), but either way, hopefully DM learned that it isn't good to give a player a multimillion dollar extension when he A. is not yet free agent eligible and B. sucks.
I imagine Mitch Maier will make the club out of spring training in Ross's spot, and then will get sent down when the Royals bump up their pitching to 12 players.
The Game
Horacio Ramirez sucks. Period. While following this game I almost wanted to throw up. I surely don't want to write about his performance, so I wont. Horacio is practically as bad as Joe Mays, Scott Elarton, Fatelvys Hernandez, DJ Carrasco, Brian Anderson, and all the other trash pitchers we've rolled out since 2004. Awful. Not any improvement. Pathetic. Frustrating.
I can't even type in real sentences anymore!
Anyway - the hitters had 7 hits and 3 runs, but more importantly they finally walked more than they struck out. (4 walks to 2 strikeouts). However, I'd prefer more walks, with more strikeouts being acceptable as long as there are more walks (like.. 6 a game would be nice! haha). Well, regardless, the offense wasn't good enough to overcome Horacio's suckiness (kind of light trying to escape from a black hole..) and the Royals lost to the Rangers 9-3 in front of a crowd of 3,204. The pitching was bad, giving up 9 runs on 13 hits, though they did strikeout 6 and walk 3.
Hitter of the Game
The HoG award goes to Shane Costa, the only hitter with 2 hits on the day. Shane was 2-2 with an RBI and no walks or strikeouts. Shane is hitting .484 this spring, but likely faces a demotion to AAA Omaha before Sunday's 2 p.m. deadline.
Pitcher of the Game
Kyle Farnsworth once again wins the pitcher of the game award. Kyle has been excellent since his first few apperances, as he pitched a scoreless 8th inning, walking one and striking out one, while allowing no hits.
The Royals will again take on the Texas Rangers tomorrow, but the location will be outside Arizona for the first time this year. The game is scheduled for 7:05 Central Time and will take place in "Dr. Pepper Ballpark" which is the Rangers' AA affilatie's stadium in Frisco, Texas. Zack Greinke will take on Vicente Padilla as each of them gears up for the regular season.
Expect my final "breakout candidate of the year" (relievers) post on Saturday and my "official predictions" post on Sunday.
As always, thanks for checking it out.
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