Playoff Chatta

I love watching playoff baseball (especially on 50 inches of gorgeous HD). Every pitch counts, every decision questioned, and every ounce of execution is critiqued. It is night and day difference from a standard Royals game in September.

The other day I was watching a Torre managed game and started thinking about the day when that bushy bearded Fr. Hillman would be on TBS HD in a ALDS. Boy, would it be CRAZY to see him manage a playoff game. I’ll set the tone. Game 4 of the series: Royals trail the Angles in the series 2-1. Game 4 was rained out the night before, so game 5 (if necessary ) will be played tomorrow in Anaheim. Two outs in the top of the 8th and the Royals lead 3-2. Zack is laboring in the 8th with a line of 7.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 9 K’s. He just gave up a double to Torii Hunter and now its runners on 2nd and 3rd with two outs. Greinke just threw his 118th pitch and he looks like he’s tired. Time for a call to the pen. Does he bring in Soria? Chip Carey says, “In this situation, you have to think that Trey Hillman will turn to the best arm in his pen and bring in the closer Soria”. The booth (and everyone outside of KC, MO) is stunned as big Kyle Farnsworth jogs out of the pen, but us Royals fans knew better. So, Big Vlad Guerrero steps in, and although he’s lost a bit of his magic, he is still a potent bat. It took 3 pitches for everything to unravel. A straight 95 MPH fastball fouled straight back. Wow, that was close – Vlad just missed it. Better stick to off-speed away from here on out. Just like Miguel Olivo – why throw him a fastball? That’s all he can hit (how the AL pitchers refuse to only throw off-speed away to Olivo continues to baffle me). Farnsy throws a slider away and Vlad waves and misses. It’s now an 0-2 count. Everyone knows what’s coming right? It’s gotta be off-speed away. Just makes sure Olivo is ready to block the ball in the dirt if you want the pitch down and we’re home free. Easy enough? Nope. Hillman makes the call from the dugout – he’s got faith in Farnsy. He loves that heater that Farnsy revs up. He signals to Miggy to put down the big one finger. Here it comes…WHAM! There it goes, a rocket double that short hops the Left Center wall. Two runs score and the Royals now trail 4-3. Farnsy gets out of the 8th and the Royals don’t score in the bottom of the frame. Farnsy goes out for the 9th and pitches around a one-out walk. The Royals strand the tying run at 2nd in the bottom of the 9th and lose the series. Afterwards, a defiant Trey Hillman defends his decision to not bring in Soria. “It was the top of the 8th and I didn’t want to use Jack for a 4 out save. If we won tonight we would’ve had game 5 tomorrow and I wanted him to be available for that. Farnsy’s been having really good bullpen sessions the last few weeks, so I figured his fastball would do the trick. Vlad’s a great ball player and we’ll tip our caps to ‘em. We played our hardest and we had some fun. Most importantly, nobody got hurt. God Bless.” After thinking this whole thing out in my head, I punched myself in the face and continued watching the Dodgers.

Dudes, how sweet is the Dodgers lineup? I love it. Kemp, Either, and Loney? Man, that is sweet to have 3 young dudes like that. I’m obsessed with Matt Kemp, have been for a few years now. Back when we were trading Dotel in ‘07, nerdy homers thought we were gonna flip 3 months of an injury prone Dotel for Matt Kemp straight up. I laughed at the time knowing it wouldn’t happen, but thought it would be the sweetest trade in the history of baseball. Obviously it didn’t happen and those nerdy homers can now see why. He is a pure 5 tool player. A younger, bigger, more disciplined Beltran with less speed. Wow, it will be fun to see how good he can get. These 3 young hitters to go with Kershaw, Billingsly (inconsistent this year), and Broxton and damn – what a nucleus. Obviously the Dodgers supplanted these dudes with bringing in a Manny, a Furcal, an O-Hud and a Randy Wolf – but you can see what a young core can do for a team. This is what we have to hope for as Royals fans. We have to hope that our core is 3 of these guys: Butler, Gordon, Moose, Hosmer, Meyers and a couple of these guys: Duffy, Montgomery, Crow, Melville, Dwyer, Coleman. As always, all we can do is hope and wait that these guys progress at a decent clip (and that Trey Hillman resigns due to a higher calling from the “true boss upstairs”).

ARIZONA FALL LEAGUE UPDATES:

Mike Moustakas, 3B
.462/.500/.923
6-13 1 HR 8 RBI
3 R
3 2B
1 SB
0/1 BB/K

Jeff Bianchi, SS
.278/.316/.278
5-18 0 HR 2 RBI
3 R
1/4 BB/K

Very encouraging start from Moose. Very small sample size, but its important to remember that he played in one of the worst hitters parks in the minor leagues last year, so I’m hoping for a nice off-season and rebound numbers next year in AA.

Bianchi played himself back into prospect status this year. The former 2nd round pick put together a nice season split between high A and AA. Could start next year as a AAA SS.

More in depth minor league review to come soon this off-season.


Exit Question: If you could have one player from one of the remaining 4 playoff teams to have on the Royals and assume their contract. Who would it be?