A hand in the Royals' playoff destiny

Anxiety sets in at different times for everyone, but I started to realize the 2012 White Sox might be screwed on the night of Thursday, Sept. 20, a night much like Monday night. The Sox spent the evening blowing an early 3-0 lead in slow-motion. They at least looked like they could escape a tense ninth inning when Matt Thornton came on with two out to face Eric Hosmer, who would finish the season with a .591 OPS against left-handed pitching.

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Saturday Recap & Father's Day Preview

Hector Noesi actually looked pretty good to start the game on Saturday. He had a very clear plan the first time through the lineup, getting ahead of hitters on strike one, sitting about 92, and then attacking very aggressively once getting to two strikes, dialing it up to 94-95, going up and in on righties, and sweeping his breaking stuff everywhere. At first he only allowed a few unlucky hits on weak contact that went for no damage. Then the fourth inning was a combination of poor control by Noesi, atrocious defense (a Leury Garcia error and a Dayan Viciedo-it-wasn't-called-an-official-error-but-he-messed-up) meant the Royals would put up a 5-spot. Danny Duffy was on his game and that was far more than he would need.

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State of the Central: The Kansas City Royals

Between the prominent presence of Royals fans in the Internet baseball writing landscape - Joe Posnanski, Rany Jazayerli, Jeff Passan, and Rob Neyer to name a few - the Royals' recent trolling of the White Sox, and my petty schadenfreude when they fail, I have paid a lot of attention to the Royals in the past few years. Dayton Moore has also just been interesting in his own right, making grand proclamations only to backpedal from them as his promises of a winning team in 5-years was then revised to 6, 7, 8 and then 10 years as the Royals kept losing.  Moore has his strengths as a GM.  He added a lot of talent to the Royals' minor league system* and got a very good return on Zack Greinke from the Brewers. Salvador Perez looks like a nice find, and he's squeezed more value out of Jeremy Guthrie and Bruce Chen than one might anticipate. At the same time, since his hiring in June of 2008, the only hitters on the major league roster who look like they can hack it are (1) Eric Hosmer, a #3 overall draft pick who plays first base and is currently slugging .391; (2) Lorenzo Cain, a player I like a lot, who was part of that Greinke trade I was praising earlier; and (3) Salvador Perez, not necessarily because I think he's a very good hitter, but rather that I think he's a good enough hitter for a good fielding catcher. Otherwise, the offense still largely depends on Alex Gordon and Billy Butler, two guys acquired by Allard Baird before Moore arrived.

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A Series Finale Starring Chris Sale - Game Preview & Lineups 4/6

Now it’s a matter of not getting swept. But Chris Sale to the rescue! There’s the hope that this isn’t a microcosm of the season. Rattle off a couple of losses and then rely on Chris Sale to bring it back home and stop a negative streak. The series finale has arrived and regardless of the score, the outcome is a trip to the Rocky Mountains.

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