Brian Bannister, Stopper Deluxe + Royals notes!
In what I would call his first great game this year—he’s had a few bad, a few so-so, a few pretty decent—Brian Bannister stopped the Royals seven-game slide. Granted, it was against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, but after the Royals got slapped around by the Baltimore Orioles and Seattle Mariners, I’ll take anything.
8 innings pitched, 2 hits, 0 walks, 1 run (a home run) allowed, six strikeouts. All of that with 107 pitches, 70 of which were strikes. It was his first win this season. Perhaps most important, he completely outpitched a fellow youngster (but a guy who might be a touch better in terms of the ol’ prospect value), Scott Kazmir.
(Sidenote: Octavio Dotel picked up his first save of the season, but it was iffy—one strikeout, two walks, no hits, 17 pitches. It got the job done but it could have been a touch more dominant.)
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In other news today, would somebody who saw the game or read a recap, please, please tell me—how did MIKE SWEENEY get a TRIPLE? It had to have been like three mistakes made by the outfielder on the same play.
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John Buck should obviously be a priority player this year for the Royals—he’s young, he seems to be the best long-term option the Royals have at catcher, and he’s one of the very few Royals who is actually hitting well this year. But, for reasons surely only True Baseball Men would know, Buddy Bell keeps benching him against right-handed starting pitchers.
Now, while I’ll admit Buck is better against lefties (.276/.400/.828 in 35 plate appearances than righties (.273/.362/.455 in 105 plate appearances), I’ll also say that his ability to hit righties this year is still much better than Jason LaRue’s (.075/.116/.150 in 43 PA) or Paul Phillips’ (.286/.286/.429 in 7 PA) or Mike Sweeney’s (.226/.297/.368 in 118 PA) or Big Bird’s.
(Weird sidenote: Buck’s great numbers against lefties come with an astonishly low .176 batting average of balls in play. I shudder to think about what those numbers would look like if more of his in-field balls turned into hits.)
I’m sympathetic to the need for Buck to get the occasional day off for a catcher—I played the position in little league, after all—but the fact that John Buck has been benched in 17 of the Royals’ 55 games makes me wonder why the Royals pay Buddy Bell a salary to manage this team.
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David DeJesus is broke.
RA examines possible reasons why.
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That’s all I got. Anyone else got stuff to say?
Reader Comments and Retorts
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It was a line drive that hit the ground near the line about halfway to the wall and rolled into the corner. The outfield corners sometimes cause weird bounces at the Trop so when Young went to field it the ball jumped past him and he had to chase it down, giving Sweeney time to reach third. Plus he was running pretty well, better than I expected to see from him.
I enjoyed it though. Catching causes you to be involved in every pitch of the game. On the rare occasion I'd play the OF, I'd get really bored and lose focus.
As for the Royals, yea, Buck should be in there everyday. I got my hopes up with the Jason LaRue to St. Louis trade talk, but looks like it was just talk. Can't imagine even Tony LaRussa would be interested in a .117 hitting catcher making $1.65 million from the Royals.
Bannister definitely lives dangerously. I hope he does well because he was fun for the Mets while he lasted, but I wouldn't expect too much for too long. Not only does he strikeout very few hitters, but he walks a lot of guys.
I know Trachsel has made a career of bucking DIPS but he isn't the same pitcher he was from 2002-2004. His k/9 is 2.34 and k/bb ratio is 0.51. That's just ridiculous.
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