Brayan Pena Stays

Catcher Brayan Pena is probably my favorite player on the Royals right now, so I am incredibly happy that the Royals have decided to keep him on the roster instead of Humberto Quintero.

The Royals are saying this is a financial decision, since Pena is under club control for another season and the Q would have been a free agent at year's end.

It's also a smart baseball move, as Pena is a switch hitter and so far this season has put up better numbers than Quintero (268/295/358 vs. 232/257/34).


Personally, though, I would like to think this speaks to a larger truth: that the Royals are continuing to build a great baseball team. And that after talent (which trumps all else), attitude matters. Because, at the end of the day, now that Salvy Perez is back behind the plate, it doesn't much matter who's chatting up Bruce Chen during his starts and riding the pine the rest of the time. 


But, Brayan Pena loves the Royals. He has said so for longer than people may realize. He WANTS to be here, and has expressed a willingness in the past to sign for below market value to stay. He's the kind of role player you want to reward for his loyalty, because it makes guys like Perez, Alcides Escobar and Alex Gordon feel good about their decisions to sign long-term deals. 


At the end of the day, the Royals will never win a bidding war for the big guns in free agency. But, when guys like Zach Grienke come onto the market, and they aren't looking for just big money, but also a good environment, keeping people like Pena around may add more value than just their on-field contributions.

Yuni. Yes, Yuni.

The turning point in tonight's game was easy to spot.

After the Rays kicked the ball around the field like a tee ball team (or, whatever team Ken Harvey is playing for these days), the Royals tied things up in the third. That's when Yuni stepped to the plate.

There was blood in the water and Mr. Betancourt was the shark. A shot to left and the game was effectively over.

Now, at this point, I should mention that when I typed in "yuni" into the Fan Graphs search box, autocorrect suggested "gunk" and I did not find this a bad recommendation.

Yuni has been demonstrably terrible for quite some time. I generally hate that he is on the team, and I am not looking forward to his inevitable collapse. However, at this point in the season, he has his highest OPS since 2007. (it's .733, but still)

Regression to the mean will hit the slowest second baseman in baseball soon enough, but for now, let's enjoy the show and enjoy the win.

Luke Hochevar: Stopper

One of my favorite terms in the baseball vernacular is "stopper." The starting pitcher who is so good, he won't allow a losing streak to continue.

Luke Hochevar, for most of his career, has been more than a starter. He has been a fire starter. He has been the guy with the match, the gasoline and the evil, cackling laugh as innocents run screaming from the flames.

After a modestly successful start to the season, Hochevar was called upon to start the Royals first home stand this season and immediately gave up seven runs in the top of the first inning, before the team even had a chance to take some practice swings in the batter's box. That led to the infamous 12-game losing streak and a hole the Royals are still trying to crawl out of.

That wasn't even Hochevar's worst start of the season. Going by game score, his outing on May 1st, in which he spotted the Tigers five runs in the first inning on his way to giving up 12 hits in four innings. That netted him a game score of one. Yes, one. I'm not sure if negative game scores are possible, but when average is 50, one is not very good.

Of course, as is his want, the Hoch has turned things around again this year, stringing together three quality starts in a row, and putting up an ERA of 4.11 in the ten starts since the debacle in Detroit.

And, yesterday's gem was the best yet. After another positive road trip, the Royals had climbed to within five games of .500, only to get swept by the always-annoyingly-better Cardinals, including a power show by a former favorite son, Carlos Beltran.

The team had trotted out Vin Mazzaro, Luis Mendoza and Jonathan Sanchez since learning that Felipe Paulino would be the fourth pitcher this year to get Tommy John surgery. Three games is not a serious losing streak in baseball, but the Royals were on the edge of meltdown and needed something good to happen.

They needed a stopper.

Luke Hochevar threw a complete game shutout with eight Ks against a single walk.

He may turn into a pumpkin in his next outing (few pitchers who put up game scores of one last long in the big leagues), but for one night, Luke Hochevar was exactly what the Royals needed.

Now, C'mon Chen!