Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Boy, that Vin Mazzaro is a heck of a hitter

I'm imagining he really had the Royals fooled, wearing a Kansas City uniform and masquerading as one of their pitchers.

This is definitely not the way I wanted Kyle Davies to be removed from the starting rotation, if indeed he was going to be removed at some point. Injuries are not cool.

I was going to say that Vin Mazzaro's performance is the kind that can end careers with a ballclub, then I checked around a bit to find that the Royals didn't even wait out the day to make a move -- they optioned Mazzaro to Omaha the same day he "pitched" 2 1/3 innings, giving up 11 hits, 3 walks, and 14 ER.

In any case, pitching is not currently the problem; injuries and lack of offense have that distinction. After Bruce Chen went down, it was bad enough -- as much as I have to take deep breaths before I say it, Chen is the Royals best starting pitcher. Davies isn't good, but had been finding ways to navigate his games, pitching acceptably in 4 of his last 5 starts.

Now comes the uncertainty of what the Royals will do to fill this void.

Bringing up Danny Duffy is the bold move, of course, the move that says, "We really are going for it this year". It wouldn't be the smartest move, but it would be the most exciting one. If he is indeed ready for the show (and it's hard to argue he's not), this would be a huge upgrade for the club, at the probable expense of an arbitration year.

Jeff Suppan is the cringe move. It's the move that says, "pleaseohpleaseohplease just get us through 3 starts". Suppan is striking out batters in Omaha to the tune of 4.0/9 innings, which in layman's terms means he's a "pitch-to-contact" guy in the minors, and would likely end up a "too-much-contact" guy in the majors. But, you know, he's crafty, he's got guile, he's the salty veteran -- so the Royals might be able to squeeze one decent start out of him.

Everett Teaford would be the head-nod move -- it's the most interesting move, the one that says, "Give us a reason to let you stay with the big club". He numbers at AAA are impressive so far this season, but he's pitched in limited innings with only 3 starts total. It's difficult to predict what the Royals would get from this.

For me, I think Teaford would be the safest move in terms of both helping the ballclub some now, if he's able to hold his own, and helping the ballclub in the future by allowing Duffy to stay with Omaha a few more weeks to delay his service clock.

Besides, the place where the Royals actually need the most help right now is offensively...it would do no good to bring Duffy up unless he's going to throw no-hitters right away, since the offense has simple ceased producing.

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