9/30/2014 Oakland Athletics 8, Kansas City Royals 9

Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City, MO
AL Wild Card Game

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome...to EARTH-2! An alternate universe in which your beloved Kansas City Royals bounced back from a near-certain elimination against your beloved Oakland A's to force a near-riotious extra-innings SACfest and win in exciting walk-off fashion to claim the AL Wild Card!

Meanwhile, on Earth-Prime, it was a different story altogether...as reported by esteemed MLBdotcom reporter Dick Kaegel:

Yes, on Earth-Prime, the Royals never recovered from the arguably Yostian shenanigans that obfuscated their chances of winning this crucial single game, and the Oakland A's emerged victorious.

There have been unconfirmed reports that this very same story was published on Earth-2 as well, before the Royals' comeback in the 8th and 9th innings to tie the game. Mr. Kaegel, formally known and respected as the winner of the Buckeye Newshawk award in both universes, simply gave up on the Royals at or around 10pm local time and decided to go to bed. When the story was submitted, and published on MLB's website, his editors phoned him frantically throughout the evening and were finally able to rouse him from his slumber just after 2am.

MLBdotcom Editor: "Dick! Wake up!! Hello?? We've been trying to call all evening!"
Dick Kaegel: "Uhmm...[snort]...rrr...[rustle rustle]...hrm...[sniff]...what the hell, do you know what time it is?"

MLBdotcom Editor: "YES...you buffoon...you posted the game story and the game wasn't over yet!! THEY WON!! The ROYALS WON!!"
Dick Kaegel: "Umm...[shrugs]...are you on drugs?"

MLBdotcom Editor: "Dammit, wake up, and fix this now!!!"
Dick Kaegel: "Hrmm...[sniff]...uh...[pause]...WAIT WHAT...they...WON?!?"

MLBdotcom Editor: "Fix this within the hour, or you'll live out the rest of your life in a pain amplifier!!"
Dick Kaegel: "Uh...[pours stiff drink]...they...WON?!?"

The fact of the matter is, some of us on Earth-2 were aware that something cosmically was quite possibly out of alignment:

If only we knew that on Earth-Prime, well...that just didn't happen. And Dick Kaegel slept peacefully through the night.

Also, on Earth-Prime...this guy didn't happen, either.

On Earth-Prime, he was drafted by the Cardinals (who lost the NL Central Division title to the Brewers, and the Wild Card slot to the Pirates) and spent the entire month of September infusing finesse into his Fantasy Football team.

My scoresheets, using my new pitch-counting method! Read about it HERE, download the scoresheets for free HERE!

If you enjoy my work, I encourage you to spread the word via Twitter

(I am @yoshiki89), and also please leave a comment!

4/10/12 Kansas City Royals 3, Oakland Athletics 0

Oakland Coliseum, Oakland, CA
Game 2 of 3

Silly me! A 10:00pm game on MLB Network, and I decided to take a nap early in the evening so I could check this out, since the opportunity to watch Royals games on live TV here is practically nil. The only perceived challenge I could have expected was for the geezer sleepmode to creep up on me later in the game and spoil my opportunity to see the Royals do their thing, good or bad. The good news: my nap strategy, for once, worked out well. The bad news: it was a later night than I had expected, thanks to…RAIN.

What I was fortunate enough to see was a spectacular small sample size outing from Danny Duffy (aka #PulledPork), who despite the elements handed the Oakland A’s a bucket of nothing much to hit for 6 shut-out innings. I’m still on the fence as to how he’ll make it through the season (don’t forget, this time last year I was starting to get high on Jeff Francis’ fumes) but tonight, he did his job and did it well.



Rain was consistent throughout the contest, but very lightly so. My best observation was that even though the precipitation was constant and light, the surface at O.co was very playable, no errors or missed opportunities due to the ballpark slip and slide. Not only that but with Duffy and Oakland starter Graham Godfrey cruising through their innings, it was starting to look as if the game would be in the can by the time the perpetual moisture in the air took its toll on the events.

Of course, as announcers spoil no-hitters unceremoniously these days, they also spoiled the shelf-life of this game by talking too much about it. With Eric Hosmer nearly the second out in the top of the 8th inning, a comment is made by Rex Hudler that for those of us at home, the rain on the field isn’t really as bad as it looks on camera.

And then, as if on cue, the rain proves Hudler quite wrong about this. Hosmer strikes out swinging, his bat goes flying towards the Royals dugout via slippery surfaces, and just like that, HP umpire Jim Joyce calls for the tarp. After nearly an hour or weather internets monitoring, the decision is made to call the game, having played enough innings to make it official, and the Royals reverse the shut-out they were handed last night right back at the Athletics.

Lorenzo Cain’s outfield DP assist was pretty awesome, just not sure if erasing that baserunner was worth his temporary outage due to injuring himself via groin strain while making the play. No comment on Chris Getz's TOOTBLAN...part of me is still confused at the persistent non-productive aggressive baserunning the Royals are pursuing.

This is my first FSKC Royals broadcast of the season, and my first earful of Rex Hudler. We all miss Frank White, as it has been said a bunch on Twitter, but really we can’t control any of that, so let’s give Hudler a chance. He is a bozo, and his cracked commentary is, at best, of great comical proportions. Not really comical in a Joe Morgan or Tim McCarver sense either, actually a bit more strained and bizarre than those two jackos. Allow me to illustrate by sharing some of the “Hudlerisms” I dared to tweet during the game:

“…he cleans off his cleats with the cleat-cleaner.”

“…on the mump. I meant to say ‘bump’ but I said ‘mound’ instead.”

“…he’s a premium hitter in his prime.”

“It’s a short season, so far.” …this one was my personal favorite!

So, let’s spare the overbearing and cynical Rex Hudler criticism for the time being, he’s making us laugh at him (not with him) without even trying to do so. We should consider ourselves fortunate that he isn’t talking too much about his playing days, or better yet about how he would manage this team if he were the manager, which he isn’t.

An unexpected comic highlight of this game centered around the affable Jeff Francoeur, he with his everlasting goofy smile and celebrated clubhouse buddy status. I missed the first part of this story, which apparently started during a Royals visit to Oakland last season. From what I gather, the fans in the right field corners make it a passionate exercise to heckle outfielders from opposing teams out there, and Frenchy would have been no exception. Jeff has made it a personal mission to befriend and make loving admirers of all he comes into contact with, which is the most you can ask from a 29-year old stalwart with “veteran” status already on his baseball nameplate. He did so with the Oakland fans previously by responding to their taunts with an offer of a baseball wrapped in a 100-dollar bill and some smack back on the subject of “bacon.”

Bacon moves the world, and even folks in Oakland know this. Tonight, they came prepared.

About 25 or 30 fans arrived adorning marvelous Oakland green-with-yellow-print shirts celebrating “Bacon Tuesday, April 10, 2012, sponsored by Jeff Francoeur.” True heart was never expressed so tenderly!

Their message made it to the Coliseum jumbotron, #BaconTuesdayCapCaper


They brought marvelous banners, #GoBaconTuesday


…and #ReceiveBacon


During the penultimate rain delay, Jeff made his way to his bacon peeps, who presented him with a copy of the T-shirt and samples of Bacon as well…


Besides Baseball, everybody should appreciate the power of Bacon. The goofy doofus smile is just a part of how both intersect flawlessly in a baseball/bacon venn diagram.




If you enjoy my work, I encourage you to spread the word via Twitter
(I am @yoshiki89), and also please leave a comment!

5/12/11 Kansas City Royals 11, New York Yankees 5

Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NY
Game 3 of 3

Hello, Eric Hosmer…welcome to Major League Baseball!
This was my first “official” look at Hosmer in a Royals uniform. I already had this broadcast dialed in a few weeks prior, as an out-of-market fan I try to catch every Royals TV broadcast I can manage to (except for those on ESPN, my boycott is still in full force). When Hosmer was called up by the Royals to appear in his first MLB game ever on May 6, 2011, I was sure to be watching this broadcast, even though it was against the high-media-profile Yankees.

I was certainly not disappointed.



On gameday, the Yankees series is tied 1-1 and the Royals were 20-17, in 2nd place in the AL Central and 3-1/2 games behind the surprising Cleveland Indians. Hope springs eternal! Calling up Hosmer as early as they did controversially reduced his definitive playing time for the Royals by one year. Will the callup improve the Royals’ chances for an AL Central crown, or even anything beyond that? Only time will tell.

After a rocky start for the year (1-2 in 4 starts and 2 relief appearances, including a blown save, 3.41 ERA) Sean O’Sullivan’s outings are getting longer (5 innings on his first start, 8 innings in his last start) and he’s boasting a consistent, yet unformidable average Game Score of 58 over those 4 starts. His opponent today, Ivan Nova, is faring somewhat better in the W-L category, but is a bit inferior in ERA and Game Score, mostly hampered by a few rough starts; when the Yankees need him the least, he’s starting to catch up. But not tonight.

Nova is roughed up “right off the bat” (pun totally intended) as the Royals clobber little Ivan during a ferocious 6-run 2nd inning. Nova would leave the game in the 4th without recording an out, allowing 10 hits total and 8 runs (4 ER) buffered by 19 total bases (including 3 doubles and 2 HRs). Amaury Sanit makes his MLB Debut and attempts to keep the lid on the Royals, he lasts through the 8th with 3 more ER to his credit, with the Royals up 11-4 on the Yankees.

Hosmer’s family is in attendance, and gets to see him plunk his 2nd HR in as many series (not to mention his 2nd MLB career HR), he finishes the game going 3-for-5 with 2 RBI and 7 total bases.

This is the Royals’ first series win in New York since August of 1999, ending the longest winless road series in MLB. The Royals are rubbing their eyes with a season-high 16 hits. The amazing item of note is, despite the final linescore you see above, consider the following:

Royals: Team LOB = 12, Team RISP = 6-15 (.400)
Yankees: Team LOB = 5, Team RISP = 2-6 (.333)

It’s hard to put one’s finger on ‘what went wrong’ here, other than kudos to O’Sullivan and Blake Wood in relief for handcuffing the Yankees where it counts the most…and caveat to the Royals for producing such a level of offense (against such a flaccid pitching staff) yet stranding so many baserunners in the process. The ‘glass half full’ analysis is: the Royals beat the crap out of inferior pitching performance. The ‘glass half empty’ analysis is: the Royals stand the chance of being shelled in return should they face a pitching squad just a few percentage points better than this one, in similar circumstances.

An early Eric Hosmer callup isn’t going to sway the risk of the latter in having an effect upon their season.




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(I am @yoshiki89), and also please leave a comment!

4/24/11 Omaha Storm Chasers 7, Nashville Sounds 3

Greer Stadium, Nashville, TN
Game 2 of 4

Who ever thought that a pick-up basketball game would ever be so…controversial…


PHOTO CREDIT: Gage Matthews

I had this date on my calendar since I heard the news. Nothing says “Fate” in Baseball like a AAA matchup between a former pitching star in rehab (did I just write that?) for the team he got recently traded to, amid some fan-scandal, pitching against the team he was traded from…pencil in the opposing starting pitcher as a former starting pitcher for the team the rehab star pitcher is pitching for now…ugh…

That didn’t flow as well as the intro to a Star Wars movie, but it is what it is…

Funny thing is, I had hoped to see the Omaha Storm Chasers during one of their visits to Nashville to play the sounds (and still do), and this series was one I originally shot down as ‘too soon in the season, too busy at home’ for me to make the 3-hour trip for. Not a horrible move in doing so, but it would have been GREAT to have been at this game.

Next best thing to being there…listening on the radio! And even better than that, knowing someone who went and took FANTASTIC photos at the game!! Gage Matthews (on Twitter he’s @MinnesotaRoyal) was there and was kind enough to allow me to use some of his work as a visual companion to my scoresheets and ingratiating sense of urgency to post a game recap. Thanks, bro!!

You can check out ALL of Gage’s wonderful photos, way too many to post here, and some much better than what you are looking at, on his flickr photostream. Gage is a swell guy who is currently located in Nashville, and is a regular contributor at the exceptional Kings of Kauffman Kansas City Royals blog...



The story of this game ends with “Greinke leaves after 2.2 innings due to a limit in pitch count after giving up 3 hits and 2 ER” but there’s really more to it than that. Greinke was actually very good, as was Tim Dillard in relief. Too often it’s heard that ‘this pitcher did well but made a mistake when he left this ball hanging (or whatever) to this batter’…this was an email comment on a recent episode of the Up and In Baseball Prospectus Podcast, and I couldn’t agree with Goldstein and Parks more when the fact of the matter is: Hitters can be good at hitting baseballs, just the same as Pitchers can be good at throwing baseballs. This game is a very good example of how a couple of very good pitchers did a very good job but were simply bested by hitters who were doing just a bit better than they were.

The Sounds started off proving this fact to Jeff Suppan, right away in the 1st inning, as Brendan Katin knocked a 2-run HR with 2 outs to take the early lead in the game. After that, it was all Omaha, buddy.

It wasn’t Mike Moustakas or Eric Hosmer who were the ‘big’ heroes today…sure, Hosmer had an RBI on a SAC fly (gee, that’s not really sexy) and Clint Robinson went 1-for-4 with 2 runs scored and a great lead-off double in the 8th inning, but the real hitters in the game were David Lough, Lorenzo Cain, Gregor Blanco, and Manny Pina. Especially David Lough…


It now occurs to me, I haven’t been paying enough attention to David Lough.

After holding a 5-2 lead for 3 innings, the Storm Chasers added icing to the cake with a 2-run 8th inning. The Sounds threatened against recently demoted Kanekoa Texeira in the bottom of the 9th but Caleb Gindl stranded 2 to end the inning and the game with only one additional run scored.

It was a victory for Royals fans who wanted to see Greinke choke for the Brewers, and who wanted to see former Brewer Suppan do well against this squad. It was really a victory for Royals fans who are enjoying the way these fellas are playing, from low A to AAA, and what kind of future the organization is looking at. It’s kind of easy now to kinda dismiss the ‘hype’ a little, but the hype is real…the Royals are real.

I listened to the game on KOIL AM 1180, called by Mark Nasser (who is very good, by the way) and Brett Pawlak. Don Money was ejected in the bottom of the 8th inning for arguing a call in favor of a checked swing by Irving Falu that occurred in the bottom of the 8th. At the end of this game, Omaha had won their 7th straight game; and the Sounds had dropped 5 of their 6 games against the Storm Chasers.

But, hey…enough of my warbling…let’s check out some of these great shots by Gage Matthews!!

Gregor Blanco


Eric Hosmer, Lance Zawadzki, a trainer, and Mike Moustakas


Eric Hosmer…he has the ball


Eric Hosmer…he throws the ball


Mike Montgomery and future Royals Superstar Vin Mazzaro*

* this comment in reference to a historic event that occurred during the 3rd week of May, a few weeks after this game…

Zack Greinke runs his laps before the game


Greinke warms up


Jeff Suppan warming up



Greinke takes the mound to start the 1st inning

Yes, I think the hair was a very bizarre touch…


Lorenzo Cain at bat


Eric Hosmer looks like a bad a$$, ALL the time…


Suppan on the mound


Hosmer is holding Mat Gamel…or is it Taylor Green?...in the 1st inning


Zack Greinke is pretty good at Pitchers Fielding…he made 2 very good assists during his brief period of work…this is among my favorite photos in this group

…this is among my favorite photos in this group

Lorenzo Cain races around 2B on his screaming triple to CF in the 2nd inning…the beginning of the end of Greinke’s outing

Cain slides into 3B as Taylor Green is ready for the throw (not in time)


Don Money takes the ball from Greinke as George Kottaras looks on…adios, Zack


Clint Robinson looks (and swings) like a tough guy


MOOOOOOOOSE…Mike Moustakas, yeah!


Tim Dillard, one of my favorite pitchers in the Brewers’ organization, found out how good the Storm Chasers are at putting his balls into play


George Kottaras scoops a ball in the dirt from Dillard


Kevin Pucetas on the mound


Mike Moustakas, dip in his cheek, waiting for…waiting for what?!?

Gage used this photo as his profile pic on Twitter…I love this shot!

Kanekoa Texeira warms up, he’s a minor leaguer now


Storm Chasers WIN!!!


ALL PHOTOS BY: Gage Matthews
…thanks again for letting me use them in this post, hope to see you at Greer this season for a Yazoo and a mega-chili dog!!!