The Kansas City Royals are off to a horriffic 3-12 start and fans are demanding some answers.
It is not HIS fault
Nobody saw this coming. While opinions of what these 2012 Kansas City Royals would be varied some, there was nobody who believed the Royals would be this bad. And we are still less than 10% into the season, starting the season by losing your first 10 home games is no way for an organization to endear itself to its fans. While nobody believes the Royals will continue play at a .200 clip, it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify watching games on television, or ponying up the cash to take your family out to the K. It is getting very depressing seeing all of the empty seats, all of the double-plays, a different leadoff hitter every night, and on and on. So it is time that we, the fans of this organization who have had to put up with this garbage for the last 20 years, got some answers.
Imagine for a second, that we, the Royals fans, are the judge and jury on this matter. We have every player and member of the Royals organization in one room. It is time to find out once and for all who is at fault for this nightmare.
In doing so, the easiest thing to do is to acknowledge those whose fault it is definitely NOT. Therefore, we will go ahead and excuse the following individuals from the room:
-Billy Butler-you are hitting exactly as we expected
-Bruce Chen-you have unexpectedly been every bit as good as we could have possibly hoped
-Danny Duffy-despite some struggles in your last outing, you have been pretty darn good
-Alcides Escobar-You have played outstanding defense, stolen some bases, and are hitting better than we could have asked
-Chris Getz/Yuniesky Betancourt-Not much was expected of this 2B duo, and they have been surprisingly somewhat effective
-Sluggerr
-Humberto Quintero/Brayan Pena-See Getz/Betancourt above. Except Pena, will you please stop grounding into double-plays in key situations?
-Mitch Maier-As expected has been used sparingly, but performed alright
-Jason Bourgeois-See Maier above, with the exception of an extremely ill-advised stolen base attempt the other night
-Mike Moustakas-Has been pretty much exactly as expected, with the exception of his defense, which has been far better than expected.
-Lorenzo Cain-your injury excuses you from any blame for this mess
As for the rest of you…
Eric Hosmer, you can leave. You have shown flashes of what you can do, have 3 (4 now as I write this) Home Runs, are hitting the ball hard (just right at the other team), and look to be adjusting to the way you are being pitched to.
The rest of you better make yourselves comfortable. Yes, I’m talking to you Ned Yost, Dave Eiland, Kevin Seitzer, the entire bullpen, Luis Mendoza…
On second thought, Mendoza, get out of here. You are performing exactly as we expected you to. Your negative impact on the team should more be blamed on the people who continue to put you in position to hurt the team.
OK, where were we…
If you have not yet been excused, then this is directed at you. We are going to address each of you either as the unit you are a part of or individually. Starting with…
-Royals marketing department-Seriously guys…WTF were you thinking? OUR TIME? Our time for what?!? Dayton Moore has tried to tell the fan base that The Process will likely take 7 years. That would put “our time” at approximately 2014. So what on earth possessed you to declare that this year would be OUR TIME?!? This was a big mistake that has contributed to unrealistic expectations.
-Ned Yost-Ned, when we watch you in your post game interviews, we get the feeling that you are very aware of why you were sent packing from a Brewers team that at was in 1st place in September. You have a reputation for being too tightly wound, and over-thinking every situation. That is why we have been somewhat impressed with the way you have maintained your composure (for the most part) in front of the media during this stretch. At the same time though, we don’t want a manager that second-guesses his decisions. We want a manager with conviction, who makes a decision and defends it. Your players need to know that you are decisive and your blabber about having Jose Mijares pitch to Prince Fielder last Wednesday portrayed you as being anything but decisive. And on top of that, all of the bunts and ill-advised stolen base attempts have gotten completely out of hand.
-Alex Gordon-You seem like a really great guy, Alex, and your baseball talent is off the charts. There is no doubt you are committed to your craft and are an extremely hard worker. That being said, have you ever done anything of note in the major leagues when there was the tiniest amount of pressure being put on you? If you have, we can’t recall. Your best season (by far) was last year, when pretty much everyone had given up on you being the player you were originally expected to be. And it took place in a season when the Royals had pretty much zero expectations of being competitive. It is still only April, and you have come up countless times in late game situations with opportunities to drive in key runs and have consistently come up empty. This is unacceptable.
-Jonathan Sanchez-By this point in your career you should be able to throw strikes. You have demonstrated an extreme inability to do this. It has to get better.
-Luke Hochevar-With the exception of one inning, you have mostly been decent. But that one inning was likely the most important inning of this whole season. Some may say that it was the final inning in the third game agains the Oakland A’s that sent this season spiraling into oblivion, but my feeling is that it was the first half inning in the home opener against Cleveland. To say this half inning was deflating for Royals fans would be a massive understatement.
-The Bullpen-Wasn’t this supposed to be a strength of this team? Between Broxton’s blown save against Oakland, Greg Holland‘s struggles, Jose Mijares’ struggles, and overall inconsistency from everyone else, this has been a train wreck for the most part. Poor pitching out of the pen has been the reason for more than a few of these 10 consecutive losses.
-Jeff Francoeur-What happened to your power, dude? 0 HR’s and 2 RBI’s at the end of April isn’t the type of production this club had in mind from it’s #5 hitter.
-Dave Eiland-Show us where you’ve made a difference with ONE of our pitchers, Dave. Danny Duffy you say? Ok, show us two. In fact, tell us why all of these pitchers who were good last year with Bob McClure as pitching coach are all of a sudden worse this year?
-Kevin Seitzer-We wanted to excuse you, Kevin. But it is time we got some of these guys going. We don’t hold you responsible yet, but if more of these guys don’t start hitting at their potential soon, we will be looking to you for answers.
-Dayton Moore-Where is our return for David DeJesus? So far, it is not appearing that you maximized the return for Melky Cabrera. Where are the rest of the young starting pitchers? We are not going to beat up on you too much, Dayton. Underperformance is not the General Manager’s fault. But this losing is getting really old. And this is the second manager you have hand-picked that appears to be on the verge of a mental meltdown.
And finally…
-You, David & Dan Glass…Yes, we understand you have tried to do things better in the last 5 years. But that does not make up for the previous years of ineptitude. And you are the one constant through all of this misery we have had to endure. And now we are going to host the All-Star Game with the worst team in baseball. Talk about embarrassing.
As you can see, we officially have more places to point the finger than all of us not named Antonio Alfonseca have on our 2 hands combined. It has unfortunately gotten to this point.
*As I finish writing this, the Royals proceed to drop their 11th in a row to go 0-10 at home and 3-13 on the year. :SIGH:
