Kansas City Royals fans woke up to an exciting email in their inbox today, they had been given the opportunity to purchase Opening Day tickets.  Once they opened the email, frustration set in very quickly.

The subject line of the email gave fans reason to get fired up, it read “Your Royals Opening Day Ticket Opportunity”.  Many fans had signed up recently for the opportunity to purchase tickets to the Royals home opener and most jumped quickly to the assumption that their name had been drawn in that regard.

Unfortunately, the subject line did not match the body of the email.  As overjoyed fans opened the email to see what they needed to do to ensure their seat at the home opener, they found the following text:

“You are receiving an exclusive opportunity to purchase tickets to every 2013 game, excluding Opening Day, today! Buy tickets before the rush!”

That’s right, the email that stated it contained your opportunity for Opening Day tickets revealed that it, in fact, contained your opportunity to buy tickets to anything except opening day.

Fans have taken to social media with their displeasure with the club over what some are calling a “bait and switch” tactic.  Many felt slighted and wondered how the club could provide an email with such a glaring oversight.  Many seem to feel this is “par for the course” with the Royals business over the last few seasons.

There is a lot of excitement around the Royals going into 2013.  The team should take notice and make sure they are not coming across as “the same old Royals”.

Bill Ivie is the editor here at I-70 Baseball
Follow him on Twitter here.

Fans May Register for Chance to Secure Tickets for Twins-Royals Home Opener

KANSAS CITY, MO (January 8, 2013) –  The Kansas City Royals will hold an online Opening Day ticket opportunity program to give fans the chance to secure tickets for the club’s home opener presented by Sprint.  The 2013 Royals home opener is set for Monday, April 8 against the Minnesota Twins.  First pitch is scheduled for 3:10 p.m.

To be eligible for the Opening Day ticket opportunity, fans must register online at www.royals.com/openingday.  Online registration is currently open and will close on Wednesday, February 6 at 5 p.m. CST.  A random drawing for the opportunity to purchase up to two tickets to Opening Day at Kauffman Stadium will be held later that week, and winners will be notified by Monday, February 11 via the email address submitted on the registration form.  Those applicants whose names are selected will then have an opportunity to purchase tickets to Opening Day at a date and time to be indicated in the winning email.  As an added benefit, all fans that register for the Opening Day ticket opportunity will have the chance to purchase tickets to any other 2013 Royals home games prior to the general public through a special presale, which will take place on Thursday, February 14 on royals.com.

Fans can also guarantee themselves tickets to Opening Day by purchasing a full-season, half-season or 21-game season ticket plan.  The 15 Game Pick ‘em Pack, which starts at just $150 for a minimum of 15 games, also includes an Opening Day seat.  All plans are currently available online at royals.com.  Fans may also contact the Royals Sales Department by calling (816) 504-4040, option 2, or emailing seasonsales@royals.com.

While throwing to rookie Salvador Perez in the second half of 2011, Kansas City Royals pitcher Luke Hochevar had his most consistent run of success in his career.

Luke Hochevar has been an enigma for most of his career. Early on, he was mostly bad with a few starts here and there that showed the ability that the Royals saw when they drafted him 1st overall in the 2006 amateur draft. Over the years, the good starts became a little more frequent, with a few outstanding performances thrown in. But when he was bad, he was really bad. It wasn’t until the second half of last season that Hochevar began to show some consistency. He still had some great starts, but his off-days were average instead of horrendous. They say that a pitcher should be judged on how he performs on his worst day, rather than on his best day. Hochevar’s worst days became much better in the 2nd half of 2011, which gave Royals fans much hope for him to continue this trend in 2012. Unfortunately, it was not to be. On April 13 for the Royals home opener, Hochevar gave up 7 runs in the top of the 1st inning which would be the beginning of one of the most horrific stretches of pitching for a starting pitcher in recent American history. His ERA currently sits at 7.02 for the season while pitching to Humberto Quintero in all 8 of his starts this season.

Salvador Perez was called up by the Royals last August and started his first game at Catcher on August 10. He caught each of Hochevar’s last 7 starts of the season. During this stretch he threw 45 2/3 innings and gave up 22 runs for a 4.34 ERA. In the first start he gave up 5 runs, so if you take out that one, assuming he was getting acclimated to having a new catcher behind the plate, the ERA is lowered to 4.17. Now, while an ERA over 4.00 will not win Hochevar any Cy Young awards, Royals fans would undoubtedly be pleased if he could provide numbers like this on a consistent basis.

While it may be a stretch to try and make this correlation, it cannot be discounted that if Hochevar can experience some success once Salvador Perez returns, that he will be the one common denominator. It cannot be understated how important consistency at the Catcher position is to the success of a pitching staff. And while Royals fans have seen pitching coaches come and go, and starting pitchers displaying maddening levels of inconsistency, perhaps it is the game of musical chairs that the Royals have played at the Catcher position over the last several years that is most responsible for this. Time will tell. Perez is due back in a couple weeks. Hopefully he can help Hochevar “turn the corner” one more time.

The Kansas City Royals are a week into their 2012 campaign. Seven games is not a large sample size. However, there are some things you can infer from the Royals past behavior during previous seasons under the current administration. I’m going to make an attempt at discerning what we know about the Royals already, and what I’m not sure about.

Since Luke Hochevar got the start yesterday afternoon for the Royals home opener I’m going to use his favorite phrase; “ummm..You know?” to help facilitate this process. In honor of Luke Hochevar I’m going to list things I know about the Royals under the heading “You know”, and things I’m not sure about under the heading “Ummm”.

Ummm

Before yesterday the Royals’ starting pitching has an ERA of 1.85. When your sample size is six games there are a lot of “yeah, buts”. You could say that the low ERA has more to do with Royals opponents than their pitchers. That holds up with the Athletics who might score the fewest runs in the AL this season. It doesn’t hold up with the Angels who are projected to score a lot of runs.

I don’t think the starting pitching is as bad as Hochevar’s Mazzaroesque 1st inning yesterday. Of course, the real answer is always somewhere in between. I think the starting staff will be better than we expected, but not as good as they’ve been outside of this guy….

You Know

I almost went off on this tangent last season. If you read between the lines of anything I wrote last season you might have picked up on it. Luke Hochevar is my least favorite Royal. There, I got that out there. I think it started with his holdout coming out of the amateur draft. It wasn’t the holdout specifically; lots of players do what Hochevar did, including teammate Aaron Crow. However, maybe it was the holdout and then his accompanying suckage at the Major League level. I’ve been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for Hochaver to turn a corner. Even though Dayton Moore’s people didn’t draft him, he continues to be treated like he was. I don’t know what it is.

Hochevar was starting to grow on me during the latter part of last season. He was finally becoming the ace pitcher that he was supposed to be, and the ace pitcher the Royals need him to be. Then yesterday’s bottom of the 1st happened re-enforcing my belief that Hochevar is a 1st round draft pick bust. Maybe I’m still mad about one bad inning in April, but Hochaver’s body of work doesn’t contain much for me to change my mind. I know the trade mark Luke Hochevar Inning will be something Royals fans will have to deal with as long as Hochaver is on the team.

Ummm

Coming into the season we thought the Royals offense would be potent. However, that has not transpired. The Royals have been shut-out twice in seven games. For comparison, last year the Royals were not shut-out until May 14th, and did not get shutout again until May 21st. The players we thought would be producers have gotten off to slow starts. Two of those players, Lorenzo Cain and Salvador Perez are on the disabled list. I’m confident these slumps will not continue. Just like I expect the starting pitching to come back to earth, I expect the offense to get going.

You Know

I hate starting out on this tangent but this team’s base running is bothering more than anything. Ned Yost claims they’re just being “aggressive”. I think Ned’s reaction is just a front for the media. Getting picked-off is not aggressive, not watching the runner in front of you is not aggressive, it’s not paying attention. Even if the Royals running out of innings is a product of being aggressive, it’s troublesome that this organization believes that aggressive base running is a proper strategy.

I’m far from a Sabrematrician, in fact I’ll argue with some of their major tenants. However, one aspect I believe from their research is that stealing bases is the most over-rated offensive statistic in baseball. Stealing bases doesn’t lead to more wins, it doesn’t even lead to more runs. In fact, I’m sure stealing bases prevents your team from scoring runs. I wrote about this last season when I got tired of the Royals tooting their horn about leading the league in stolen bases. The Royals need to stop falling asleep on the base paths. They need to stop running themselves out of innings, and they need to stop being aggressive. But one thing I know is that the Royals base running continues to be terrible.

What do we know about the Royals? Aside from what I’ve discussed, not much. After the Angels series I was confident that this year was going to live up to expectations and we were going to enjoy it. Right now I feel like the Royals are going down the path of the 106 loss 2005 team filled with moments of historical suckage and comedy. I’m probably right on both accounts. Most experts expected the Royals to hang around .500. Right now they’re one game below .500. If this were a football season the Royals would have just finished the 3rd quarter during Week 1 and they’re down by a field goal. As fans that’s something we need to remember.

ROYALS ANNOUNCE OPENING DAY TICKET OPPORTUNITY
Fans May Register for Chance to Secure Tickets for Indians-Royals Home Opener

KANSAS CITY, MO (January 20, 2012) –The Kansas City Royals will hold an online Opening Day ticket opportunity program to give fans the chance to secure tickets for the club’s home opener presented by Sprint.  The 2012 Royals home opener is set for Friday, April 13 against the Cleveland Indians.  First pitch is scheduled for 3:10 p.m.

To be eligible for the Opening Day ticket opportunity, fans must register online at www.royals.com/openingday.  Online registration is currently open and will close on Tuesday, February 21 at 5:00 p.m. CST.  A random drawing for the opportunity to purchase up to two tickets to Opening Day at Kauffman Stadium will be held later that week, and winners will be notified by Monday, February 27 via the email address submitted on the registration form.  Those applicants whose names are selected will then have an opportunity to purchase tickets to Opening Day at a date and time to be indicated in the winning email.  As an added benefit, all fans that register for the Opening Day ticket opportunity will have the chance to purchase tickets to any other 2012 Royals home games prior to the general public through a special presale, which will take place on Thursday, March 1 on royals.com.

Fans can also guarantee themselves tickets to Opening Day by purchasing a full-season, half-season or 21-game season ticket plan.  The Pick 15 Plan, which starts at just $165 for a minimum of 15 games, also includes an Opening Day seat.  All plans are currently available online at royals.com.  Fans may also contact the Royals Sales Department by calling (816) 504-4040, option 2, or emailing seasonsales@royals.com.