A Rainy Week Not Good On The Royals’ Bats

The Royals offense this week, like the weather, wasn’t very pretty. The Royals scored only three runs or less in five of the games this past week, as expected when any major league team puts that few of runs, there were more losses than wins this week. However, the week ended on a high note by splitting the series with the Rangers and won on Friday night against our in-state rival, the St. Louis Cardinals.

The team’s highest batting average this past week was a mediocre .273. The only homerun was from Hosmer (who led the team with extra base hits with 3 this week) that sent a game into extra innings. In fact, Hosmer hit more extra base hits than Gordon (0), Cabrera (0), Aviles (0), Betemit (0), Escobar (0), and Butler (2 doubles) combined. Not exactly a good time to have a cold streak on the bats when facing one of the hottest teams right now in the Cleveland Indians and a very formidable Ranger team, who are playing well despite not having their best player in the lineup in Josh Hamilton.

The pitching did their part in four of the games in that they only gave up three runs or less in those contests. However, in the other three games alone, they gave up a whopping thirty-one runs, including nineteen against Cleveland on Monday night. This presented zero opportunities for Joakim Soria to work his magic, but even he has been showing signs of being off this year.

Jeff Francis has to be the highlight of the week on the pitching staff, making two solid appearances by pitching fifteen solid innings by only giving up three runs, while striking out nine. He is definitely filling in nicely for Bruce Chen in the starting rotation as a crafty southpaw. With Chen due back in the Rotation late next week, the Royals could have two solid lefties in the Rotation.

Jason Kendall could be making his way back to catching again in a couple of weeks after being on the DL with shoulder problems. The Royals are not rushing Kyle Davies by any means to get back into the rotation with his rotator cuff injury.

The Royals have fallen quite a bit since the beginning of May, however, a few inspiring quotes I remembered hearing a few times come to mind for this young team and its fans.

“Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday’s success or put its failures behind and start over again. That’s the way life is, with a new game every day, and that’s the way baseball is.” – Bob Feller

“Look at misfortune the same way you look at success – Don’t Panic! Do you best and forget the consequences.” – Walter Alston

Being at .500 at this point in the season, after playing the teams they have had to play so far, is still a solid start for a very young and inexperienced ball club. This club maybe be labeled inexperienced for the most part now, but by the end of the season, these young guys will have taken their lumps and had enough successes to have built something that might surprise everyone when it comes September.