A Banny Day; Royals Beat Tigers, 7-2

The Royals offense started early and it overwhelmed Jeremy Bonderman and the Tigers, 7-2, on Faith and Family Sunday at the K.

This is what we want to see more of.

Quality Starting Pitching: Brian Bannister went 7 1/3 innings, striking out five and walking only one.  Sure, Banny was helped by the early cushion but giving two runs on five hits is solid.

Quality Offensive Attack: We had some power (Jose Guillen’s 3-run homer), good hitting and good baserunning (Mitch Maier scoring from third on a ball that didn’t get out to the warning track) in a 15-hit attack where every Royals player collected a hit (even replacement DH Wilson Betemit).

I can only find one negative from Sunday’s game and it came on the final out when Joakim Soria and Billy Butler nearly collided for the final pop-out. Does anyone on this team know how to communicate? Does anyone yell, “I got it!?”

Seriously. That’s last decade Royals stuff.

Soria caught the ball and the game was over, but I can see injuries to our best All-Star game candidate in Butler and our dominant closer in Soria.

C’mon guys, call it! 🙂

Sunday Funday Links
Banny’s Day
Great outing by Brian Bannister and a great talk before the Jeremy Camp concert as well.

Royals Target Miami U Catcher
The Royals have alternatives, however.

2010 Royals Authoriy Mock Draft
Is Yasmani Grandal a lock for the first pick?

Advertisement

Sunday Notebook: No More Lima Time

I was saddened to hear about Jose Lima’s death (STORY). I didn’t know much about him outside of his stints here in Kansas City, but by all accounts, he was an extremely fun guy. Age 37 – wow.

• • •

Zack Greinke struggled mightily against the Rockies, giving up seven earned runs in just 3 1/3 innings on the mound. The outing sent his ERA skyrocketing from 2.72 to 3.57.

You don’t see Zack struggle that bad very often. Is he pressing too hard because of the lack of run support? The Royals put up goose eggs while he was in the game, scoring their 7 runs after he left.

You can tell outside of the new manager winning spell the Royals just experienced that this team still has problems.

• • •

The Kansas City Star had a great article by Sam Mellinger (STORY) about the Royals’ prospects in the minor leagues, specifically the group at Double-A Northwest Arkansas. Even though the Dayton Moore era hasn’t been any better than the Allard Baird or Herk Robinson era, only time will tell. If these prospects flounder when they wear big league uniforms, we have even more problems.