Rouse: Royals prep for 2nd half
ROYALS PROGRESS WILL BE IN FULL VIEW AS SEASON’S 2ND HALF BEGINS, by Charles Rouse
KANSAS CITY – For the people among us who rejoice in having just one, peaceful day away from the crazed, all-consuming, often over-hyped world of sports, your desperate wait is over – if only for a single day. The next 24 hours is arguably the most uneventful day of the year on the U.S. sports calendar. After Sunday’s games, most of Major League Baseball began a four-to-five day holiday from the game as part of a welcome midseason break those close to the game like to call All-Star Week.
That’s when baseball’s best get together in a predetermined American League or National League location to hob knob, have some fun and, oh yea, show off their skills and thrills for the fans by playing an exhibition game. There are fan-oriented festivities over a couple of days leading up to the actual All-Star game itself, which was won last night by the National League All-Stars, 3-1, breaking a 12-game losing skid to their fellow AL All-Stars in the 81st edition of the annual Midsummer Classic played this year at Angel Stadium of Anaheim.
Two years from now, incidentally, the celebration will come to Kauffman Stadium. It will be the second time the MLB All-Star Game has been played at The K, and the third time in Kansas City. The point is, there’s this enormous build up to the All-Star Game, and then a cliff-like drop off from a sports news perspective the day after as the players travel to rejoin their teams and get set to resume the season. (Heck, USA Today’s Sports Weekly newspaper is even delayed by a day from its usual Wednesday publishing schedule because of the Tuesday night All-Star Game.)
There are a sprinkling of games scheduled on Thursday, and then everybody swings back into second-half action on Friday. With no MLB, NFL, NBA, WTT, PGA or college action to speak of on today’s local sports docket (the Wizards are playing, however), it’s a perfect time to reflect on what has taken place over the first 88 games or so in this year’s major league season and look ahead to what we might expect when the second and more critical part of the season gets started later this week.
Our hometown Boys of Summer, the Kansas City Royals, start off the second half of the season at home at The K against the Oakland A’s. At this time a week ago, it appeared that the All-Star break might be coming at a bad time, with the Royals having won 10 of their previous 13 games as the team got set to close out its nine-game road trip and the first half of the season with three games in Chicago against the now AL Central Division-leading White Sox. The White Sox took the swagger right out of the Royals with a dominating three-game sweep.
As it tuned out, the ensuing time off probably came at a good time for Kansas City. The Royals are 27-26 since manager Ned Yost took over in early May, and were playing their best baseball of the year before running into a buzz saw last weekend in Chicago. The White Sox, the hottest team in baseball with a 25-5 record over their last 30 games, were probably the worst team the Royals could have met up with heading into the break.
That’s all behind them now, though, as the Royals look to make a fresh start on Friday against the A’s and regain the swagger they were showing on the front part of their last road trip against two other AL West teams (the Angels and Mariners). Hard to believe it, but this will be the first meeting of the season between Kansas City and Oakland. The A’s finished the first half of the season three games under .500 at 43-46.
Kansas City starts the second half at 39-49, two games better than the team’s 37-51 record after 88 games a year ago. The big difference from last year is that the current version of the Royals is leading the major leagues in hitting with a .282 team average, and the starting pitching and bullpen help has stepped up since Yost took over as manager. By contrast, last year’s Royals team was at the bottom of the league in both categories. Getting on base hasn’t been an issue for Kansas City hitters.
Getting those base runners home, though, after they’ve reached base has been an entirely different matter. Only four other American League teams have scored fewer runs than the Royals through half a season. Outfielder David DeJesus (with a .326 batting average) and Billy Butler (.322) are fifth and seventh in the American League in hitting and two of four Royals regulars who are hitting above .300 at midseason. It will be interesting to see in the next two weeks what, if any, player moves Royals general manager Dayton Moore is willing to make in setting the roster for the balance of the current season and shaping the team’s needs for the future.
The non-waiver trading period runs until July 31. After that time, in order to be traded, a player must clear waivers around the league first. Looking ahead to the future, the Royals home-grown talent from the farm system is looking better and better. Closer Joakim Soria may have been the only member of the parent club to make this year’s MLB All-Star roster, but the Royals’ Class AAA and AA minor league teams fared pretty well in that department.
Third-baseman Alex Gordon and first-baseman Kila Ka’aihue of the Omaha Royals were selected to play in the Pacific Coast League All-Star Game, and 10 members of the Northwest Arkansas Naturals were named as Double-A Texas League All-Stars. That’s definitely a positive player-development sign for future years. As in any sport, how you start off the second half goes a long way in determining how you will finish, whether you’re talking about an individual game or the full season.
The Royals doomed themselves right out of the gate to begin the second half last season. They went into the 2009 All-Star break dropping four out of five road games, and then proceeded to lose seven in a row at home (to Tampa Bay and the Los Angeles Angels) in resuming play after the All-Star Game. Despite their record, Kansas City is a better team this year than in the past several years, and signs of that improvement should become even more apparent as the season continues.
The hard truth, however, is that without making some major player moves to bring in or bring up more power and more consistent top-to-bottom pitching, the Royals, as presently constituted, are no better than a .500 team at best. There are several surprises among the six division leaders as we get set for the second half of the season. All six division races also are unusually close for this point in the season, with at least two teams within five games of the leader in two American League and two National League divisions.
One of the tight races is in AL Central, where the Royals will have a lot to say about how things turn out. The red-hot White Sox have a half-game lead over the Detroit Tigers, and the defending division champs, the Minnesota Twins, are only three and a half back. Only seven games separate the Royals and the Twins, and with many intra-divisional games still to be played, were likely to see a number of changes in the Central standings before it’s all over.
Besides the White Sox, the AL division leaders are the New York Yankees in the East and the surprising Texas Rangers, who have the largest lead in all of baseball’s divisional races, at four and a half games. Leading the NL races after half a season are the Atlanta Braves in the East, and two major surprises in the other divisions: the Cincinnati Reds by a game over St. Louis in the Central, and the San Diego Padres are atop the West by two games over the Colorado Rockies.
Right before the season started, I predicted where all 30 major league teams would finish the 2010 season. Below are the Kansas City Sports Examiner’s midseason course corrections and a revised look at the remainder of the season:
Kansas City Sports Examiner’s Midseason 2010 MLB projections
AL East Division
(Wins, losses, games behind)
New York Yankees 106-56
Tampa Bay Rays* 100-62 6.0
Boston Red Sox 95-67 11.0
Toronto Blue Jays 78-84 28.0
Baltimore Orioles 58-104 48.0
AL Central Division
Detroit Tigers 92-70
Minnesota Twins 89-73 3.0
Chicago White Sox 84-78 8.0
Kansas City Royals 73-89 19.0
Cleveland Indians 65-97 27.0
AL West Division
Texas Rangers 92-70
Los Angeles Angels 87-75 5.0
Oakland A’s 75-87 17.0
Seattle Mariners 64-98 28.0
NL East Division
Philadelphia Phillies 93-69
Atlanta Braves 90-72 3.0
New York Mets 85-77 8.0
Florida Marlins 78-84 15.0
Washington Nationals 73-89 20.0
NL Central Division
St. Louis Cardinals 91-71
Cincinnati Reds 86-76 5.0
Milwaukee Brewers 78-84 13.0
Chicago Cubs 74-88 17.0
Houston Astros 66-96 25.0
Pittsburgh Pirates 61-101 30.0
NL West Division
Los Angeles Dodgers 92-70
San Diego Padres* 90-72 2.0
Colorado Rockies 86-76 6.0
San Francisco Giants 82-80 10.0
Arizona Diamondbacks 66-96 26.0
*Wild card teams
AL Division Series
Yankees over Rangers, 3 games to 1
Rays over Tigers, 3 games to 2
AL Championship Series
Yankees over Rays, 4 games to 2
NL Division Series
Phillies over Padres, 3 games to 2
Dodgers over Cardinals, 3 games to 1
NL Championship Series
Phillies over Dodgers, 4 games to 2
World Series
Yankees over Phillies, 4 games to 1
Charles (Chip) F. Rouse III, the Kansas City Sports Examiner, has spent over 40 years working in and with the news media. Rouse, a journalist by training and a graduate of the University of Kansas, has served in the role of newspaper reporter; in addition to radio and television. To view Chip’s sports articles, including this one, on Examiner.com, please click here. He welcomes your comments at crouse@massappealnews.com.