I totally did not see this game coming today. Maybe it was the fact that I've read too many scouting reports on John Danks entitled "future ace" or maybe it was the fact that a player with one extra base hit was starting in RF for us today, reminiscent of the bad ol' days. But none of that matters when Kyle Davies goes out and pitches like he did today. And honestly, Danks was almost as good. Today's game was one of the best pitching duels I think I've ever seen the Royals been involved in. In fact, this whole series was one of the lowest scoring series I can remember the Royals being a part of. Then again, last year's opening series the Royals allowed just 5 runs in 3 games to the Detroit Tigers. While the Tigers did not end up the beast many of us thought they would be, everyone was very excited about Meche, Bannister, and Greinke's games then too.
I'm not saying that the performances of the last three days should be discounted, as strikeouts have been up and walks and hits have been down, I'm just saying let's keep a level head before anointing the Royals the proverbial AL Central "crown".
Something that impressed me was that even though Joakim gave up a run to make it 2-1 and clearly didn't have his best command, he still fought through and closed it out for a Royals victory. Impressive.
Coco Crisp will be the hitter of the game today, as it's hard to find a more important batter. Coco was 2-3 with 2 walks, a double, a two run game winning home run and no strikeouts. He drove in 2 and scored 1 run. Impressive.
Kyle Davies is the pitcher of the game today, obviously. Davies had electric stuff, and to my recollection didn't even throw his curveball until the 4th inning, and it seemed to me his curve was one of his best pitches today.
Some beef I have with Trey is that Coco was once again trying to bunt over Mike Aviles. Look, I realize the game is close and a few runs will probably win it, but stats prove that trading an out for moving up a base almost NEVER increase your chance of scoring one run or multiple runs. The fact of the matter is, you should basically never sac bunt in the AL. Especially when the bunter is one of your better hitters, and the runner (Callaspo) is slow enough that he wouldn't automatically score on any hit from 2nd base even with 2 outs.
Please, no more bunting!
The Royals and Ponson take on the Yankees tomorrow, while I'm excited to see how the Royals do against Pettite, as they tore up lefties pretty well last year, I'm anything but excited to see Tex and the boys tee off on Sucky Ponson.. ugh!
Thanks for reading.
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