The M’s hitting and Royals pitching

By Gary Hill

The Seattle Mariners took three of four games from the Kansas City Royals as the offense roared to life. The Mariners exploded for 31 runs, 50 hits, 8 homers, 8 doubles, 4 triples and 12 walks in an impressive road showing. There were some huge series put together on an individual basis:

Wells- (6-18) 2 HR 7 RBIs 6 R 2 BB
Montero- (10-17) 1 HR 8 RBIs 5 R 2 BB
Seager- (4-19) 1 HR 4 RBIs 2 R 1 BB
Saunders- (5-16) 1 HR 3 RBIs 1 R 1 BB
Ryan- (4-12) 0 HR 1 RBI 2 R 1 BB
Ichiro- (8-20) 0 HR 1 RBI 5 R 0 BB
Ackley- (5-16) 1 HR 2 RBIs 5 R 2 BB

The Mariners continue to lead all of baseball with road runs, but it gets tricky this weekend against some very good arms in Tampa Bay.

Friday- James Shields- (8-6 4.44 ERA)
Saturday- Alex Cobb- (4-6 4.92 ERA)
Sunday- Matt Moore- (6-6 4.39 ERA)

On the other side of things it is going to be very interesting to watch the Kansas City Royals the next few years. They have the makings of a young tremendous offensive core with Billy Butler, Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer, Alex Gordon and Wil Myers. It is a core that has the potential to lead Kansas City to some very big things. However, the Royals will not be going anywhere without a rotation. The Royals made it to the postseason seven times in ten years between 1976 and 1985. They won it all in ’85, but they have not seen the playoffs since. Bret Saberhagen, Mark Gubicza, Bud Black, Danny Jackson, Charlie Leibrandt and Paul Splittorff were some of the imposing starters the opposition would have to deal with. The current list is not as impressive. The days of stellar Kansas City starters has long gone by the wayside. The following is a list of Kansas City starting pitchers with at least 30 games started who have at least thrown one pitch since the year 2000. The numbers speak for themselves.

Zack Greinke- 169 starts (60-67) 3.82 ERA
Jeff Suppan- 133 starts (39-51) 4.73 ERA
Luke Hochevar- 114 starts (36-51) 5.27 ERA
Jose Rosado- 112 starts (37-45) 4.27 ERA
Brian Bannister- 108 starts (35-49) 5.13 ERA
Gil Meche- 100 starts (29-39) 4.27 ERA
Kyle Davies- 99 starts (29-44) 5.34 ERA
Darrel May- 84 starts (23-37) 4.81 ERA
Runelvys Hernandez- 78 starts (25-33) 5.38 ERA
Bruce Chen- 77 starts (32-29) 4.58 ERA
Dan Reichert- 51 starts (21-25) 5.53 ERA
Paul Byrd- 48 starts (23-17) 3.95 ERA
Mac Suzuki- 48 starts (12-20) 4.96 ERA
Chad Durbin- 47 starts (11-22) 6.01 ERA
Jose Lima- 46 starts (13-19) 6.36 ERA
Blake Stein- 45 starts (16-19) 5.01 ERA
Chris George- 44 starts (14-20) 6.48 ERA
Jimmy Goble- 43 starts (22-23) 5.23 ERA
Jeremy Affeldt- 42 starts (17-22) 4.77 ERA
Jay Witasick- 42 starts (12-20) 5.71 ERA
Brian Anderson- 39 starts (12-15) 5.44 ERA
Odalis Perez- 38 starts (10-15) 5.59 ERA
Mike Wood- 34 starts (11-19) 5.28 ERA
Jorge De la Rosa- 33 starts (11-16) 5.64 ERA
Jeff Francis- 31 starts (6-16) 4.82 ERA

Did you make it all the way through the list? Well done.