Not long after the Cinderella Dutch team was eliminated from the World Bseball Classic, the Royals signed team catalyst and leader Sidney Ponson to a minor league deal. Ponson pitched fantastically during the WBC and earned strong recommendations from several Royals’ scouts.

Against Venezuela Ponson pitched in 5 innings and gave up 2 runs in the 3-1 loss. Ponson also beat the Dominican Republic by going 4 innings and giving up only 2 runs. Last season Ponson had a 4-1 record with a 3.88 ERA in 9 starts with the Texas Rangers, and with the New York Yankees pitched in 16 games with a 4-4 record and a 5.85 ERA.

I expect Ponson to report to camp as soon as possible and compete with Bannister, Hochevar, and Horacio Ramirez for the final two rotation spots behind Meche, Greinke, and Davies.

Zack Greinke just received a huge pay raise from the Kansas City Royals. The Royals have signed the starting pitcher to a four-year deal that is worth $38 million. I’m surprised the Royals committed that much money to one player, especially a starting pitcher. It is a good sign however because it shows that they are finally interestedin keeping one of their promising young players.

Greinke will get $3.75 million this year, $7.25 million in 2010, and $13.5 million in each of the final two seasons. He only earned $1.475 million in 2008 so you can really see how big of a pay raise he is getting!

The Royals do still have three other players that they would like to get signed before arbitration hearings. Mark Teahen, Mike Jacobs and Brian Bannister are all without deals for 2009.

It was a great series for the Kansas City Royals as they swept the Seattle Mariners in a four game series. They finished up the sweep with a 12-0 victory on Thursday afternoon. It was a dominating performance out of the pitching staff as well as the offense.

Left-hander Zack Greinke tossed the first seven innings of the game and only allowed two hits while improving his record to 12-10. Greinke now has a 3.59 ERA for the season. Jimmy Gobble and Joel Peralta each pitched an inning of relief after Greinke was taken out of the game.

Mike Aviles led the team at the plate with a three-run home run and three rbi’s. He was then followed by Alex Gordon and Mitch Maier with two rbi each. Up next was David DeJesus, Joey Gathright, Ryan Shealy, and Mark Teahen with one rbi each.

Great series for the Royals who will now play the Chicago White Sox in a weekend series. The Royals can spoiler as the White Sox are in a battle with the Twins for the division.

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The Kansas City Royals were blasted out of Cleveland as the Indians beat the visiting Royals by the score of 10-3. The Royals were swept in the three game series against the Indians and well they are probably glad to get out of Cleveland!

Zack Greinke got the start for the Royals on the mound and gave up six hits and five runs (only one was earned) in five innings of action. Greinke did give up one home run in the game while walking one and striking out four. Errors really hurt Greinke and the Royals as you can tell with only one of the five runs being earned.

Robinson Tejeda and Joel Peralta were both tagged for one run in relief while Josh Newman was charged with three runs in the eighth inning. Every Royals pitcher that stepped on the mound Thursday pitched terribly!

Mark Teahen led the team at the plate with two rbi as he had a two run double in the fifth inning. Teahen then scored on a rbi single by Tony Pena Jr.

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Just as I had predicted, the Kansas City Royals lost on Wednesday afternoon to the Detroit Tigers.  It was a 7-1 loss and the Royals were swept away in the three game series.  I’m sure they are glad that the Tigers are getting out of town after these last three games.

Zack Greinke gave up seven hits and five runs to take the loss for the Royals.  Greinke is now 7-7 on the season.  Horacio Ramirez gave up two more runs in the 7th inning.  Leo Nunez pitched a scoreless 8th inning before Ron Mahay pitched a scoreless 9th inning.

The one run for the Royals came the 7th inning when Jose Guillen singled to center and David DeJesus scored.  That was all the Royals could muster however as the bats were still swinging and not making very good contact.

The Royals will now begin a series on Thursday against the Tampa Bay Rays.  Uh oh, it looks like it could be another sweep!  Royals Blog

What a nice comeback win for the Kansas City Royals who looked dead until the bottom of the eighth inning.  Two runs in the eighth inning for the Royals were enough to come from behind and beat the White Sox for a 2-1 victory.  With the win, the Royals were able to avoid the three game sweep as well.

Mike Aviles and Jose Guillen both had rbi doubles in the eighth inning for the Royals.  Aviles double was off of White Sox starter Mark Buehrle and Guillen’s came off of Octavio Dotel.  The Royals weren’t done scoring however as Mark Teahen added a two run inside the park home run to extend the Royals lead to 4-1.

Royals starter Zack Greinke pitched awesome as he pitched seven innings and only gave up six hits and one run.  The one mistake by Greinke came in the fourth inning when Jermaine Dye it a solo home run.  That was the only run the White Sox would get however.  Ron Mahay tossed a eighth inning to get the win and then Joakim Soria closed the door on the White Sox in the ninth to record his 24th save of the season.

The Royals have one series left before the All Star break as they will start a three game series on Friday against the Seattle Mariners.

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The Royals continued their winning ways on tuesday night with a 7-3 win over former Royals starter Jorge De La Rosa and the Colorado Rockies. It was a game that looked like a pitchers dual early between De La Rosa and Royals starter Zack Greinke. But in the 4th inning the Royals got on the board only to be answered by the Rockies scoring 1 run in the 5th inning and 2 in the 6th. The Royals stretched their 7 runs out between the 4th and 7th inning where they scored atleast 1 run in every inning.

Zack Greinke had a good start, going 6 innings with 10 strikeouts. Ramon Ramirez also had 3 of the 14 strikeouts by the Royals tonight. Other than Davies 1st inning blowup against the Giants the Royals starting rotation has really gotten on a roll and has been pitching pretty good.

The pitching has been there all year for the Royals though and while it has helped with the wins the Royals bats have picked up a lot from earlier in the year. In the last 3 games the offense has put up 26 runs. The Royals have even pick up the home run pace and they are no longer the worst in the league in home runs. They are also now 9-1 in their last 10games and are 7.5 games back of the White Sox for first. Hopefully the winning has not been because of weaker opponents from the NL and the team can continue on against AL opponents.

After this week at Bush Stadium in St. Louis, all of the Cardinals fans saying that this is not a rivalry may have some different feelings now. The Royals just swept the Cardinals in a 3 game series. And with how Kansas City had been playing before interleague play this is very exciting to see. The Royals are now 7-2 against National League teams this year and 5-1 in their last 2 series.

Todays game was a 4-1 win that Zack Greinke pitched great in. The Royals allowed their fewest amount of hits in a game for the season with only 2 allowed. The only run by the Cardinals came on a home run. All 3 games of the series were close with the other to games being 1-run games. Mark Teahen was able to give the Royals two insurance runs in the 9th inning while they had a 2-1 lead. It was Mark’s 7th home run on the season.

Even with this sweep being over a injured Cardinals team it still feels pretty good to be a Royals fan today. Now the Royals will come home to play a series against the Giants and then the Rockies. Both of these series seam winable for KC. After the 12 game losing streak that really hurt the Royals hopefully they are playing well enough to get back in the division race.

This was somewhat of a ugly game tonight for both teams, but especially for the Royals who lost on a walk-off home run. Even with the game going into extra innings in a 1-0 win for the Diamondbacks the pitching wasn’t as good as you would think. Both teams left a lot of men on base and also a lot of men in scoring popsition. Zack Grienke got out of a bases loaded jam in the second and third inning where he threw over 30 pitches but did not let a run in. Doug Davis was the pitcher for the Diamondbacks and pitched well but like Greinke allowed too many runners on base and was lucky to keep the Royals scoreless.

Yasukio Yabuta gave up the game winning home run in the 10th inning to Chad Tracy. The Royals pitching gave up way too many walks. There were 8 in total, 7 from Greinke and 1 from Yabuta. Included in the 8 walks were 3 to Diamondbacks young outfielder Justin Upton. Also for the Diamondbacks Chris Young went for the golden sombraro with 4 strikeouts.

Tommorow is the second game of the series in Arizona. Luke Hochevar will be pitching for the Royals against Randy Johnson for the D-Backs.

The Royals came into tonight’s game with a chance to gain some ground on the first place Chicago White Sox. The chance was blown as Kansas City pitching gave up 9 runs.

Zack Greinke had a 2.88 ERA on the season before the game but was unfortunatly hit hard tonight by what has been a struggling White Sox line up. Zack’s ERA was ballooned to 3.56 after the game. What really hurt Greinke was the long ball. He gave up three home runs tonight. Carlos Quentin was the first to go deep for his 15th of the season. Pierzynski and Ramirez also hit home runs tonight for the Sox.

It was a dissapointing game not just because of Greinke’s problems, but Tony Pena Jr. was back in a starting role at shortstop. TPJ did surprise though by actually getting on base which he does not do very often as you can tell by his .178 OBP. (It’s not to often that you see a player hitting under the mendoza line with his OBP.) Tony singled early in the game. He also kicked a double play ground ball into the outfield and literally threw his bat at a pitch 3 feet outside.

Shortstop Mike Aviles has played one game with three at-bats since being called up from AAA. Trey Hillman said he was not impressed, and Aviles has not gotten into a game since. While Hillman was so unimpressed with these at-bats that he sits for five games we must be patient with Tony Pena Jr. hitting .155 in 155 at-bats. I have not had many problems with the managing this year but what is going on at shortstop is absurd. Why not put Aviles in the line up and get some at-bats instead of turn our line up into a National League order by playing Tony Pena Jr.