The Sunday Ramble

The Pirates are plundering their opponents, Bumgarner melts down and out of Arizona, the Reds are securing their future rotation and the AL Central is bad.

Welcome to the first regular-season edition of the Ramble. As a refresher, I thought it would be fun to use this space on Sundays to write (and ramble) about what caught my attention outside of the Royals-sphere during the week. I hope you enjoy catching up on some items from around the league. Feel free to leave your own in the comments.

Of course, my timing is brutal. On Saturday, the Royals pulled out all the stops in what was the game of the year, an 11-8 victory, snapping a seven game losing streak. They rallied for five runs in the ninth with two batters getting hit by a pitch—the second of which broke a tie—a pair of walks, a home run that was overturned and made a triple and, perhaps most improbably, a Hunter Dozier single that drove in two insurance runs.

Naturally, Dozier TOOTBLAN’d to end the inning.

Still! It was an amazing night of baseball where the offense broke out in a huge way. Edward Olivares tied the game in the ninth with a clutch single. Kyle Isbel was the tying run after his home run was correctly ruled a triple. MJ Melendez picked up a pair of hits, including a run-scoring triple. Salvador Perez scored twice. Matt Duffy was on base four times, twice with a double. Dozier also collected three hits and drove in three.

The team struck out just three times all night and went 7-14 with runners in scoring position. According to ESPN, the victory broke a string of 126 games where the Royals lost when trailing by multiple runs in the 9th inning or later. It’s been a while we’ve seen a rally that epic.

The pitching side was just as incredible. Carlos Hernández was called for a balk on a pitch that was allegedly popped up for the third out of the inning. The result was chaos where even the broadcast went to commercial. Aroldis Chapman hit 103 MPH a couple of times in navigating the dangerous part of the Angels order. And Scott Barlow looked like vintage Scott Barlow in the ninth to lock down the save.

I was not prepared to be this entertained by the Royals on a Saturday night. Whew.

Pour another cup of coffee and settle in for some baseball talk.

During the season, I always gravitate to another, random team and follow them from afar. Usually, my pseudo-allegiance depends on the quality of said team’s radio and TV broadcasts. Also, they have to be interesting. Whether they’re leading the league in runs scored or dumpster fires, if I’m going to follow another team, I have to be entertained. That’s how I landed on the Giants in the early 2010s. Most recently, it’s been the Mets.

This year, it may be the Pirates.

Pittsburgh, if you haven’t noticed, is off to a scorching start. Winners of 15 of their first 22, their roster intrigues the hell out of me. You have the kids…the centerpieces of their neverending rebuild in Ke’Bryan Hayes, Mitch Keller and the sadly injured Oneil Cruz. You have the disgruntled Bryan Reynolds and his on-again/off-again contract extension. You have the wily veteran in Carlos Santana and the 43-year-old Rich Hill (who looks like he’s…over the hill. Sorry!). You have up and coming folk hero in Connor Joe. There’s the flamethrowing closer in David Bednar. And then the fantastic (so far) homecoming of Andrew McCutchen. Throw those players in a blender and combine them with some of the best uniforms in baseball and their fantastic stadium and yeah…I’ll watch those games.

On Friday, I caught the last couple of innings of their 4-3 win over Cincinnati. Joe went 3-3 and was a one-man rally in tying the score in the sixth. The Pirates took the lead in the seventh on a two-out Santana double, scoring McCutchen from first. Bednar closed it down in the ninth. The announced attendance was only 17,000, but the Pittsburgh broadcast did a nice job conveying the enthusiasm and excitement of those assembled. For a game in April, it felt important.

The Pirates front office extended the contract of manager Derek Shelton on Saturday. It feels like they’re finally going in the right direction. It’s enough to make you envious.

The Pirates arc resembles the Royals in so many ways. Don’t forget Pittsburgh made the postseason three consecutive years starting in 2013. As the Wild Card in ‘13, they lost the NLDS to the Cardinals, three games to two after holding a two games to one lead in the series. The next two seasons, they bowed out in the Wild Card game, failing to score a run in either. In 2014 they ran into the postseason buzzsaw that was Madison Bumgarner. In ‘15 it was the brilliant Jake Arrieta. It reminds me how fortunate we were to experience those two October runs in Kansas City.

But while the Royals continue to flounder, the Pirates are back. For the moment. This April they are a reminder that fun baseball is fun.

Speaking of Bumgarner, I’m sure you noticed his name on the transaction wire this week. After getting lit up by the Cardinals—and having a bit of the ass against Willson Contreras—Bumgarner saw his time in Arizona come to an end. After signing a five-year, $85 million contract to pitch for the Diamondbacks ahead of the 2020 season, he finished his time there with a 5.18 ERA, an ERA+ of 80 and was worth a grand total of 1.0 fWAR.

This may be an unpopular opinion in these parts, but I never held any animosity for Bumgarner in how he carved up the Royals (and the Cardinals and the Nationals and the aforementioned Pirates) in 2014. He seems like a deeply unpleasant person, but in that instance, you kind of just have to tip your cap. However distasteful it may be. His run through that October was just historically good so if the Royals were going to get beat, they at least got beat by the best.

When Bumgarner officially clears waivers and hits the open market, you would’ve thought he’d be a perfect fit for the Cardinals, whose predilection to baseball’s book of unwritten rules seems to jive with the left-hander’s penchant for red-assery. Except he probably napalmed that bridge when he offered a choice critique of Contreras’ anatomy. Contreras’ crime, it has to be noted, was he took a healthy cut at a Bumgarner meatball. Bumgarner, as he does, took exception. Contreras subsequently walked and executed a sublime batflip.

No, the Royals should not try to sign him.

The Reds locked up one of their young pitchers earlier this week when they extended right-hander Hunter Greene on a deal that is guaranteed $53 million. It covers the next six years, which includes what would’ve been his first year after being eligible for free agency. There’s also an option for a seventh year.

Greene is the hardest-throwing starter in baseball. Since the start of 2022, he’s uncorked 405 fastballs that have touched triple-digits. Last year, he started 22 games for the Reds and posted a 4.44 ERA with an 11.8 SO/9. With the atomic heater, there are times when he gets barreled (his home run rate was 1.7 HR/9 last year), but when he’s on, he’s simply overpowering. He’s off to a strong start in ‘23, with a 4.24 ERA to pair with a 12.7 SO/9.

On the heels of the Greene extension comes word the Reds are engaging lefty Nick Lodolo. Both players were top-10 draft picks by Cincinnati and both were top prospects before graduating from the system last year. Lodolo, a couple of years older than Greene, finished with a 3.66 ERA and 11.4 SO/9 last year.

The Reds are away off from contention, but it appears they have two rotation cornerstones they are willing to build around. Contrast that to Kansas City where maybe Brady Singer is someone. It’s also likely his 2022 was an outlier. There’s a ton of risk if you start to talk to him about an extension. Other than Singer…there’s not a single arm in the Royals system who would merit any kind of consideration. It’s part of the frustration of the situation in Kansas City. Not only has progress stalled (although hopefully turning around with the new pitching coaches), but while they’re treading water at the bottom of the league, there are other teams making considerable strides.

The Royals are constantly playing catch-up. It’s a vicious cycle.

For the last couple of years, I’ve done a semi-regular feature in my newsletters where I would recap games in the AL Central. Kind of a check-in on the division. I haven’t done it yet this year because it kind of feels…irrelevant. But maybe I should because, wow…this division is extra bad this month.

The Royals were the only Central team to win on Saturday. And from looking at the losing streaks of the other teams, you won’t be surprised to learn that that was the first win for an AL Central team since Wednesday.

This is the sort of stuff that feeds into my frustration that the Royals have been able to win just one Central Division title. It’s a division generally defined by mediocrity. If there’s a great team, they’re not great for long. It’s such a ripe division. And the Royals have just been so hopeless at contending. Despite winning just five games, they are only six games back. Even at this point of the season, that’s kind of amazing. Now I’m not saying they have a chance to pull themselves back to contention, but seeing the teams bunched like this again, you have to think that the road out of this hole they’ve dug themselves shouldn’t take all that long. Five year plans aren’t required. Build today to win tomorrow.

That new downtown stadium ownership covets becomes an easy sell if they can give the fans just a little bit of hope. And in the Central, that really shouldn’t take all that much.

Finally, the Oakland A’s (formerly of Kansas City and Philadelphia) appear to be on the verge of relocating once again. The Las Vegas Journal Review is reporting that the team has agreed to purchase land just off The Strip.

The A’s ownership has done everything they can to force a move. They’ve let the Coleseum fall into massive disrepair—the latest story has a possum taking up residence in the visiting broadcast booth—while flirting with locations to move within the Bay Area, but it seems like roadblocks have cropped at every corner. Meanwhile, the team opened the season with a payroll a shade under $57 million, the lowest in the majors. Through their first 21 games, they have a run differential of -100. They drew around 4,000 for midweek games against Cleveland in the first week of the season. It’s a mess.

I have a ton of empathy for A’s fans, one of the more passionate fan bases when they turn out, and who did nothing to deserve this treatment. MLB wants to move forward with expansion to 32 teams (and the fees the existing teams will collect when admitting two new clubs to the league). Manfred and his crew can’t admit new members to their organization without setting the stadium issues that plague Oakland and Tampa. Resolving to move the A’s to Vegas solves one problem and brings baseball closer to Manfred’s nirvana.

However, I’m not sure I see baseball succeeding in Las Vegas. This isn’t football or even hockey, both of which are doing well in the desert. As the 40th-largest TV market, it would be the smallest in the majors. There seem to be better options available. I’m sure, you know, reasons are involved for selecting Vegas.

Meanwhile, a stadium needs to be built in Vegas. That can happen by…2027. So what the hell are the A’s going to do until then? They have successfully alienated the few fans remaining so I can’t imagine they’ll stay in Oakland for the next three-plus years.

While there is finally traction on this front, it’s far from resolved.