R.N. Spring Training Trip 2008

[RoyalLoyal]

Pena has obviously been working on his bunting. He laid down a nice bunt-single on Friday. Observation... Trey Hillman is an intense dude. Observation #2... De La Rosa might be working at the Pon de rosa soon. (snicker) I think he's hopeless. Observation #3 Ross Gload rocks! Observation #4 Watching Yabuta made me wonder what the Japanese translation for "batting practice pitcher" is.

Uncle Mike

[KC Royals Nation]

Who's "Uncle Mike"?

I hope to have another segment posted on Sunday. We only attended about five innings of the Sunday contest, but I got a pretty good sampling of Royals players.

[KC Royals Nation]

Unfortunately, we faced a late check-out and didn't arrive to the field until about the second inning. As we entered, we were greeted by Zack Greinke getting knocked for a run-scoring single, or in the general scheme of things: another Royals pitcher getting knocked around, which had almost become routine for us in this Spring Training 2008 experience.

Also, thanks to mdinaz, whom I met (along with his family) at the yard.

However, after allowing a walk and a couple singles, Greinke settled down and pitched three more nice, scoreless innings. He wasn't overwhelmingly dominant like he was in his mid-to-late 2007 pseudo-closers role. However, he was hitting 92-94 on the radar gun, and hitting 70-74 consistently with a slow curve ball.

- It was vintage Zack Greinke: a nice combination of finesse and speed, fine spot-hitting, a good job of keeping the ball down, with a healthy amount of strikeouts.

- Offensively, I'm still underwhelmed by Tony Pena's approach at the plate. From a baserunning standpoint, he almost got picked off first again. His instincts on the basepaths were slow, it appeared.

- Mike Maroth struggled mightily with control and command early, as evidenced by his four walks in one inning. Quite simply, he must throw strikes and keep the ball down with his 87-89mph. fastball, which was exactly the velocity he displayed Sunday. The organization has announced that Maroth's injury has set him back to the extent that he will not make the 25-man cut out of camp. Hopefully, at age 30, he can find some remnants of the success he had for a brief period in the early-to-mid '00s as a #3/#4-level starter.

- Joey Gathright continues to race down the baselines. He should easily steal 40+ bases if given everyday playing time, and 25+ in his current projected role (slightly more than a fourth outfielder would be the consensus, at this point, IMO).

Unfortunately, I was unable to a) watch the Minor League games, b) capture the plethora of pictures I snapped on Thursday and Saturday, and c) stay for the entire game, to get a glimpse of the offensive and pitching substitutions.

Oh, well.

Overall, this trip was exciting, not just because of the baseball, but because of the "experience": in-depth political and Royals conversations, the swimming, the fine dining (and I do mean fine dining), and the Night Vision/safari-like desert expedition, which I will explain later.

lelandinkc and RoyalLoyal are both registered at this board. Hopefully, Leland will drop by and give his $.02 about the trip.

[KC Royals Nation]

Mark Teahen ready to hit a groundout, 6-3.


Ross Gload delivers a single up the right-field line.


Esteban German would eventually get called out on three strikes, of which the third one was questionable.


German swings.


Matt Tupman takes a pitch low. He would walk.


Joey G.


Zack Greinke delivers a pitch.


The pitch thereafter. That is consistent mechanics.


Greinke getting ready to throw a curveball.


Third base coach Luis Silverio made at least two questionable calls in the game - sending Alex Gordon with 2 men on and nobody out to get thrown out at home by a country mile, and not sending Ryan Shealy to score with 2 outs. Questionable instincts? I think so.


Gload getting ready to explode.


Ross Gload in a wide-angle shot.


Tony Pena, Jr. ready to cut.


Gathright.


Mike Maroth takes the hill in a sixth inning jam.


That's Joey Gathright in left field. Decent, but not overwhelming, crowd on a lazy Sunday afternoon.


Au revoir for the 2008 season, Surprise Stadium! We'll be back in '09, for sure.

[mdinaz]

Observations to add:

I also questioned Silverio holding up Shealy when he could have easily scored. However, on another play he did send Shealy home, and he was ponderously slow. I don't know if Shealy is a typically slow runner, but if he is, I can see why Silverio held him up previously.

Greinke, overall, pitched well and his line indicates such. However, it seemed to me his pitch count was getting high rather rapidly. It was scary at first because when the game started, the wind was blowing straight out to center at about 20 mph with higher gusts. By the 2nd inning, the wind had shifted and was blowing back towards the field over the deep 1st base side, keeping the ball in the park and blowing many balls foul. Had the wind continued to blow out to deep center, I think Greinke would have been in trouble. There were a number of hits by both sides that were sharp and would have been gone had the wind not shifted. Two long fly balls were caught at the fence, but would have been 30 ft over the fence just 2 innings earlier.

Very pleased with what I saw with Gathright. Stealing, running out ground balls. Others would have been out at 1st but he beat them out with hustle. I'm a firm believer that you always hustle out any ground ball - I've beat out bad grounders by hustling, either because I beat out the throw or because my hustle causes the 2B or SS to bobble the ball when they realize they may get beat out. I also like the idea better of Gathright batting lead off.

Our seats were on the 3B side, right behind the tarp just beyond 3B. This is where everyone lined up for autographs, right in our laps. Trey Hillman was the first to come over, and he was very no-nonsense, businesslike. Pena, Gathright, and Shealy also signed for fans. My 5-yr old, attending her first baseball game, said to no one in particular "I hope we win the game". Gathright was standing right there next to her and smiled, and said "Gee I hope we win too". After he walked away, she then added "Which team are we again?" Glad Gathright didn't catch that part of the conversation. Alex Gordon walked by several times but did not respond to pleas for autographs. Frank White was nearby but also did not come by. Several fans were rather rude in their approach to getting autographs and I eventually kicked them out of their spot as they were standing right in front of my seat.

The day started out sunny with spotty puffy clouds, but very windy and kinda cold. The wind slowed down and shifted direction, but then dark nasty clouds moved in. Luckily they didn't last long and we never got rained on although it looked like it for a while. The day ended on a sunny note. Royals win 13-3. Most of the stadium had cleared out by the top of the 8th inning.

Although still only a spring training game, the stadium still has MLB prices. Luckily its one of the nicest ST stadiums in baseball.