A week ago, the Fan stated that Kyle Farnsworth should not pitch in another meaningful situation for the Royals the rest of the season. As usual, the Fan is spitting into the wind because Trey Hillman, no doubt thinking that he has to use the guy since he cost the team so much money, threw him into another meaningful game Wednesday night and before you could scream, "Stupid!" the game was history.
Jiminy Crickets, man! The Fan just spent 2000 words including the Royals as contenders in the American League West and Hillman has thrown away two games already by throwing Farnsworth out there. Doesn't somebody on that team look at numbers? Doesn't anybody learn from mistakes? This is more intolerable than playing twenty games of Spider Solitaire when another post could have been written. Let's look at Wednesday night's debacle.
The game was tied 2-2 going into the top of the seventh. The Royals had just mounted a comeback in the bottom half of the sixth to tie the game. Sidney Ponson has thrown his second decent game in a row for the Royals (who thought that would happen?). But who does Hillman bring in? Mr. Kyle Farnsworth. This was how his night went:
The first batter Farnsworth faces is Asdrubal Cabrera, the Indian's shortstop. Keep in mind that Cabrera has a career Slugging Percentage of .382. Cabrera doubles. Here we go! Grady Sizemore popped out to the infield (and the poor Royals' fans were starting to hope again). Mark DeRosa came up. He's been mired in a 5 for 30 slump. Farnsworth was just what the doctor ordered. Single to center and Cabrera scored.
This was the point where Farnsworth got creative. He balked DeRosa to second. How does a guy who has pitched for eleven years in the big leagues balk? Anyway, Farnsworth then walked Victor Martinez and Farnsworth's night was done. Unfortunately for him, Ron Mahay came in and threw gasoline on Farnsworth's considerable fire and after a double by Hafner and a sacrifice fly by Choo, the Royals were then down by three runs and were unable to recover.
So to recap, Farnsworth faced four batters. He retired only one of them. The other three scored. He has now given up eight base runners in three and a third innings of relief this year. He has now cost the Royals two games out of their first ten. So if the Royals play 162 games and Farnsworth keeps up this pace, he'll cost the Royals 16.2 losses.
You could blame Hillman for using him in tight situations. But it's sort of like blaming a kid when his mom gives him a match and he sets the house on fire. The front office never should have signed the guy in the first place and put Hillman in a position to fail this way. But Hillman knows now and the Fan will say it again, if Hillman uses Farnsworth in another meaningful situation the rest of the year, the onus is on him and nobody else and all bets are off.
2 comments:
I think they'll be using Juan Cruz in the 8th as the setup man, and that's a good choice. But their middle relief is severely lacking.
It's weird how Farnsworth's antics are humorous to me now, after he caused me so much pain over the years
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