Royals falter, season over!
10/11/2011
And just like that it, its over. All the hard work this season was wasted. No other way to put it really. Coming into the playoffs, the Royals were the team to beat but they apparently forgot how to hit the ball.
For a team that led the American League in home runs this season to only hit one this series, is down right pitiful. When
Joe Blanton gets creamed in game three and allows seven earned runs in six innings, that disgusting. When the likely AL MVP Award Winner
Gene Marguez and All-Star
Melvin Colmenares hit .125 and .200 respectively in this series, it makes you want to gouge your eyeballs out. And when the Royals lost in four games, it makes you want to throw away your Royals gear and find a new team because this was supposed to be the team this year. But it just wasn't to be.
"Blame it on lack of experience, nerves, whatever the hell you want but it comes down to me. I failed the organization and fans tonight. I thought I had the guys ready but I didn't. All their hard work this season meant nothing. No one ever remembers who won the most games in the regular season. They only remember the World Series winner." a distraught
Antonio DeLeon had to say. The manager is taking full blame for the loss but we will say it came down to three things.
The Royals pitching was just not there. The Royals had the best ERA in the AL this season but that didn't matter this week. The consistently gave up early runs and were making the hitters press for runs. You cant win games like that.
Bobby Brownlie's performance in Game 2 was magical but the other starters forgot how to pitch. And with Blanton getting absolutely shelled in Game 3, it is just icing on the cake for now.
The next two reasons are practically the same but without Marguez and Colmenares hitting, the Royals were terrible. And with
Peter Friel leading off and only hitting .125 how can you win games. Now the bright spot was the play of
Rudolph Shaeffer and
William Quattlabaum. They hit .400 and .467 respectively. Absolutely great numbers for their first post season appearance but when your one through three guys are not getting on base, there is no one to drive in. Shaeffer hit .400 and only had one run batted in. That's down right sickening.
And after them
Santiago Rao who led the majors in stolen bases this year with 90, hit .083. That's right, that's a zero to start out with. Hard to generate runs when you are never on base.
So it comes down to this, the Royals were terrible and have a lot of time now to think about what happened. Its hard to nail it down to one thing but overall the team just stunk it up.
GM Chris Torres had this to say after the loss, "I am extremely proud of the guys but we will start tomorrow rebuilding the team and find people who want to win and not go fishing in the off season. I thought we had the right team this year and with everyone healthy, I didn't think losing was a possibility. But look what happened. I will make a promise to the fans that we will be back better than ever next year. Just watch."
So as the Royals boarded the plane back to Kansas City tonight the thoughts on their minds was about all the blown chances. But there is always tomorrow and with most of the big name players still locked up for a few years, the Royals should become a consistent playoff team. Lets just hope for more winning next year. Lets go Royals!!