Daily Clips
April 2, 2018
LOCAL
Sunday's White Sox-Royals game postponed
Rescheduled as part of day-night doubleheader on April 28
April 1, 2018By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
Royals' Moustakas is already hitting the ball harder than he did last year
April 1, 2018By Maria Torres/KC Star
Wintry weather in KC prompts Royals to postpone Sunday's game
April 1, 2018By Maria Torres/KC Star
Could Nate Karns be the Royals' next great reliever?
April 2, 2018By Rustin Dodd/The Athletic
Two games in, the Royals' bullpen looks like it's going to be a headache for Ned Yost
April 1, 2018By Rustin Dodd/The Athletic
NATIONAL
DeShields out 4-6 weeks with hand fracture
Rangers' center fielder needs surgery for broken hamate bone
April 1, 2018By T.R. Sullivan/MLB.com
D-backs place Tomas on outright waivers
April 1, 2018By Steve Gilbert/MLB.com
Ten numbers that define baseball in 2018
April 2, 2018By Jayson Stark/The Athletic
MLB TRANSACTIONS
April 2, 2018 •.CBSSports.com
LOCAL
Sunday's White Sox-Royals game postponed
Rescheduled as part of day-night doubleheader on April 28
April 1, 2018By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
The White Sox-Royals game scheduled for Sunday at Kauffman Stadium was postponed because of a bitterly cold forecast with likely snow accumulation.
The game will be made up on April 28 as part of a day-night doubleheader -- 1:15 and 7:15 p.m. CT.
The Royals indicated that Sunday's scheduled starter, right-hander Jason Hammel, now will pitch in Detroit on Monday to open a three-game series. Reynaldo Lopez was to start on Sunday for Chicago.
Right-hander Jakob Junis will pitch on Tuesday against the Tigers, and Opening Day starter Danny Duffy will pitch on Wednesday.
Royals' Moustakas is already hitting the ball harder than he did last year
April 1, 2018By Maria Torres/KC Star
For nearly three years, no one had witnessed a scene like the one that unfolded Saturday evening at Kauffman Stadium.
With two outs and a one-run Royals lead in what became a 4-3 loss to the White Sox, it would have been hard to predict. Especially with a nip in the air and the wind chill settling in the 30s.
How long had it been, anyway, since Mike Moustakas hit a triple?
Yet there Moustakas was, putting his barrel on a 3-1 fastball left smack in the middle of the strike zone by White Sox starting pitcher Lucas Giolito.
The crack of the bat sliced through the chilled air. Moustakas hustled out of the left-handed batter’s box. He wheeled around the bases, kicking up infield dirt with his cleats as he went.
When he hurtled his 6-foot, 215-pound body head-first into third base, he accomplished what he hadn’t done since May 15, 2015.
Moustakas had done so much in the intervening years. He clubbed 63 homers and 57 doubles during regular-season competition. He brought a World Series trophy back to Kansas City for the first time in 30 years and attended two All-Star games.
Moustakas even hit free agency, an experiment that ended in an agreement to a short-term homecoming.
But he hadn’t hit a triple in about 35 months.
Coming from a player who missed nearly three weeks of Cactus League competition and has often battled knee injuries, the hit seemed remarkable.
But to some, it might not have come as much of a surprise.
“I think he’s gonna continue to evolve as a hitter,” manager Ned Yost said shortly after Moustakas re-signed with the Royals a few weeks ago. “We’ve watched him get better and better and better every year.”
Yost estimated during spring training that Moustakas needed some 35 at-bats to find his timing in the batter’s box. Moustakas, who logged nine hits, including four homers, in eight games this spring, didn't need nearly that many.
“If (agent) Scott (Boras) didn’t think he was in good shape, he would have been honest with me,” general manager Dayton Moore said during the last week of spring training. “He’s looked good this spring.”
The difference?
Health.
Moustakas was slowed by injuries — an anterior cruciate ligament tear in his right knee in 2016 and discomfort in the same knee that developed after he was hit by a pitch in the hip in July — for two seasons. So far, he’s shown no signs of feeling discomfort in that beleaguered right knee.
His free run around the bases Saturday proved it.
“I just talked to Moose about his legs. … He’s running so much better,” Fox Sports Kansas City announcer Rex Hudler said during Saturday’s broadcast. “He said, ‘Hud, it’s amazing how you can run when your knee doesn’t hurt.’ ”
All Moustakas ever needed to return to full strength was time.
“I took a couple of weeks off," Moustakas said. "Started working out and started my offseason training once I got home from vacation. And then we were good to go.”
But even healthy last year, Moustakas didn’t tear the cover off the baseball. His average exit velocity, an advanced metric that measures how hard a ball is hit, hovered around 87 mph through the first half, just below league average.
Moustakas’ RBI single on opening day clocked in at 103.7 mph. Later in the game, he hit a double that registered 105.3 mph on Statcast’s radar. The number jacked up to 111.9 mph for Saturday’s triple, which was jabbed so hard into the right-field corner that it ricocheted onto the warning track and in front of the Royals bullpen door before White Sox outfielder Avisail Garcia could run it down.
Moustakas’ hardest-hit ball last season came off the bat with an exit velocity of 112.9 mph. It was a ground-ball single.
Whether or not that above-average power translates to harder hits all season is impossible to predict. The 2018 sample size is small yet.
But in a world of advanced metrics, it is readily apparent what a healthy Moustakas can do.
“Anytime I would run or put pressure on it, it would tighten up or swell up and I wasn’t able to get a couple of days, which I needed, or just a week that I needed to just sit and let it relax,” Moustakas said last week. “But I just wanted to go out there and keep competing with the boys."
Wintry weather in KC prompts Royals to postpone Sunday's game
April 1, 2018By Maria Torres/KC Star
With snow and bitter cold expected to encroach on the Kansas City metro area Sunday afternoon, the Royals postponed their scheduled 1:15 p.m. game with the Chicago White Sox.
The game will be made up in a day/night doubleheader on April 28. Fans with tickets to Sunday's game can use them for the first matchup of that scheduled doubleheader.
The Royals, 0-2, will travel to Detroit for a three-game series with the Tigers that's scheduled to begin Monday at 12:10 p.m. KC starting pitchers Jason Hammel and Jakob Junis will make their season debuts at Comerica Park.
Danny Duffy, who made the opening day start on Thursday, will start Wednesday’s game. Rookie Eric Skoglund will make his first start of the season Friday in Cleveland.
Could Nate Karns be the Royals' next great reliever?
April 2, 2018By Rustin Dodd/The Athletic
On a spring day four years ago, Royals manager Ned Yost summoned Wade Davis into his office for a meeting. He had a proposal the believed would help the Royals. He did not realize it would help change baseball.
Days earlier, reliever Luke Hochevar had blown the ulnar collateral ligament in his right arm. The Royals needed cover at the back of their bullpen. They wanted Davis, a 28-year-old starter with an erratic track record, to embrace a full-time role in relief. Davis, famously stoic during four seasons in Kansas City, pondered the idea for a second or two.
“Whatever I do,” Davis told Yost. “I just want to be good at it.”
Four years later, Davis has appeared in three straight All-Star Games and closed out a World Series. For a time in 2014 and 2015, he was the most dominant relief pitcher in baseball. Yet four years later, his influence on how baseball teams build pitching staffs may still be understated.
Teamed with Greg Holland and Kelvin Herrera, Davis was the final cog in a bullpen machine that carried the Royals to consecutive American League pennants, begot Andrew Miller, and created a market in which relievers are paid like stars. And earlier this week, Davis was on the mind of Yost as he discussed Nate Karns, another starting pitcher with an erratic track record and an immediate future in the bullpen.
“What Wade did,” Yost said, pondering Karns' future. “Is that a possibility? Yeah.”
OK, Yost was speaking more generally about the path from starter to reliever, a maneuver the Royals perfected in the last decade. The club is under no illusions that Karns, 30, will become Davis, or even Hochevar, another failed starter he flourished in relief. They remain hopeful, in fact, that he can become an effective starting pitcher at some point. Yet as the team placed Karns on the disabled list with elbow inflammation on Opening Day, club officials voiced a commitment to move him into a relief role, allowing his power arsenal to play in short bursts.
“He has that ability,” Yost said. “I think he has the kind of arm to maybe put him in that spot.”
Indeed, Karns, 6 feet 3 and 225 pounds, possesses the optimum profile to pitch in relief. His fastball — which averaged 92.9 mph last season — could gain additional velocity. His secondary offerings — a curveball and changeup — could produce more swings and misses (and he's struck out more than a batter per inning his career). Yet when Royals general manager Dayton Moore searches for an analog for Karns, he avoids Davis and Hochevar and settles on left-hander Mike Minor, the former starter who converted to relief for health reasons.
Minor moved to the bullpen last season after shoulder issues limited his ability to pitch deep into games. Karns, who logged just 139 2/3 innings the last two seasons, hit a similar wall in spring training. Coming off surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome, he battled tightness in his elbow. As the regular season approached, the club harbored concerns about his ability to start every fifth day.
“You go in this thing with a plan, but you’ve got to be open-minded to adjust the plan,” Moore said.
The parallels to Minor were clear. He prospered in relief last season, posting a 2.55 ERA in 77 2/3 innings and earning a three-year, $28 million contract from the Texas Rangers. The Royals envision a possible similar path for Karns, who is under club control through 2020.
“I just think that he’s a natural down there with his stuff — his quality of pitches,” Yost said.
The Royals are intent on seeing what Karns can be in relief. And it is not difficult to squint hard and imagine him filling a need in the late innings. The club's relief corps remains thin in the bridge to closer Kelvin Herrera. Their once-proud formula — shortening games to six innings, ambushing opponents with power arms — has been shaken by defections. The team began the season relying on Brandon Maurer, Justin Grimm and Blaine Boyer to piece together a respectable outfit. At the very least, Karns is open to seeing how his stuff plays in relief.
“At this point, I’m comfortable with any role that keeps me on the active roster,” Karns said. “I believe in my capabilities to go out there, and I believe the organization does, too. I just want to get healthy.”
It is a simple goal, of course. For much of his career, though, his health has been a recurring bugaboo. A 12th-round pick in 2009, he did not make his major-league debut with Washington until 2013. Across the next four seasons, he pitched few than 300 innings in the major leagues.
In 2016, he spent the second half of his only season in Seattle sidelined by a back strain. The next offseason, he was traded to Kansas City for outfielder Jarrod Dyson.
Last May, Karns owned a 3.43 ERA in eight starts before being diagnosed with thoracic outlet, a neurogenic condition. Days later, a specialist in Dallas removed a portion of rib near his neck to alleviate pressure off a nerve.
The Royals stood by him in the winter, negotiating a contract in his first year of arbitration. The decision appeared wise when Karns arrived to spring training with his velocity back in the low to mid 90s. In the final weeks of spring training, his arm barked again.
“It’s one of those things,” Karns said, “where if I sit there and try to throw my normal velocity, it’s not going to feel too good.”
Karns will be eligible to return to the 25-man roster when the Royals open a three-game series against the Cleveland Indians on Friday. The Royals do not expect him to be out long. Soon enough, he will be pitching out of the bullpen. The experiment could last for months.
The Royals plan to monitor his workload and control his innings. In time, Yost said, they will “go to the whip,” as they did with Minor last season. It is easy to envision a scenario in which Karns excels, where his power arm fuses perfectly with a job that requires securing three or six outs, not 18. Maybe Karns is the next Davis or Hochevar. Maybe he can cash in like Minor. “It’s very lucrative,” Yost said.
Yost, however, sees one difference. The Royals still believe Karns could be a reliable starting pitcher if his body cooperates. Years ago, the Royals put Hochevar and Davis in the bullpen because they could not.
“I also thought: These guys are going to be much better relievers than starters,” Yost said of Davis and Hochevar. “I’m not so sure about Karns in that respect. I’m not so sure Karns is going to be a much better reliever than he is a starter. I still think he has a chance to be a good starter. It’s not like I’m abandoning [that].”
Two games in, the Royals' bullpen looks like it's going to be a headache for Ned Yost
April 1, 2018By Rustin Dodd/The Athletic
Perhaps we can start here: The Royals’ bullpen will not be this bad. It will not spend 162 games allowing six runs per game, as it has in the first two. It cannot continue like this. The sample size is too small, the season too young to draw hard conclusions.
The numbers are awful. For now, they are just data points.
And yet, in the immediate aftermath of a 4-3 loss to the Chicago White Sox on Saturday night, it was easy to wonder, “Just how bad is it going to be?”
For the second time in three days, the bullpen was laid to waste by a young Chicago offense as reliever Brandon Maurer yielded three runs in the top of the eighth and the White Sox erased a 3-1 deficit.
The particulars were not pleasant: Maurer surrendered a booming home run to Yoan Moncada on an 0-1 changeup that caught the middle of the plate. He served up a two-run double to catcher Welington Castillo, who swung away at a 3-0 fastball.
In the span of six batters, Maurer had nullified a strong season debut from starting pitcher Ian Kennedy and three runs from the Royals’ offense. In his second appearance of the season, Maurer wore the loss and faced the questions inside the home clubhouse.
“I think I was just out there overthrowing today so that never really works,” Maurer said. “Just kind of yanking heaters and falling behind.”
Maurer’s command was erratic. He wanted the changeup down to Moncada. He fell behind on Castillo, who offered the night’s biggest swing. Yet the performance was magnified because it came two days after the bullpen allowed nine runs in a 14-7 loss on Opening Day. It will receive further scrutiny because the Royals entered spring training with an unproven, scattershot collection of relievers. And after two games, the unit has remained on brand.
“We’ve had so many off-days,” said Kennedy, who allowed one run in six innings, his best start since last July 26. “[It’s] kind of like hitters. They like to throw a lot. They like the repetition. I think it will get better as the season starts getting in the flow.”
Before Maurer coughed up the two-run lead, Royals manager Ned Yost had lined up his tentative back-end procession in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings.
It began with veteran right-hander Justin Grimm, who was released by the Cubs during spring training and posted a 5.53 ERA last season. It continued in the eighth with Maurer, who has yet to harness his potent stuff since being acquired from the San Diego Padres before the trade deadline last summer. It would have concluded with closer Kelvin Herrera in the ninth, but the lead disappeared and the night finished with some poetic symbolism: Joakim Soria, the much-maligned former Kansas City reliever, trotted out of the left-field bullpen before the bottom of the ninth and saved the game for the White Sox.