To be a fan....

Oh to be a Royals fan.

Sometimes it gets to be extremely difficult. Like now.

During a 9 game losing streak that has spanned before the all-star break, the Royals have had some of the worst relief pitching that I can remember. During the streak, the bullpen is 0-4 with an ERA of 10.05 and 4 blown saves. An ERA of 10.05!!! 10.05!!! That is more than 1 run per inning.

Which is pretty much awful. But expected at the same time.

Why is it expected?

Because of inherited runners.

Baseball-reference.com keeps an awesome list of MLB stats that includes relief pitching and many other mind blowing stats. The one that I was curious about was inherited runners. It seems like every time a relief pitcher comes in with men on base, those men score. I thought I would be wrong about this (or at least hoped I would be wrong) because up until recently our bullpen's ERA has not been terrible. Just bad. And they were supposed to be a strength to start the year.

So inherited runners... How do the Royals compare to the rest of the league and how many inherited runners score?

Answers: They are the worst in the league and as of today 46% of inherited runners score!

The league average is 33%. The leaders in the league are the St. Louis Cardinals, who only allow 22% of inherited runners to score. Half as many as the Royals.

Well, so percentages are ok, but what about hard numbers? Maybe the Royals just don't get that many inherited runners.

Wrong... The Royals have given up the highest number to score (73 and second place has 67) and have seen the 6th most inherited runners in MLB. On top of that, 3 teams who have seen more runners (Tampa Bay, STL and the Dodgers) have allowed less than 30% to score.

But it really can't be that bad can it? Maybe the Royals bullpen comes in with the bases juiced all the time with a 1 run lead in the 8th inning (high pressure). You can't quantify that can you?

Yes you can.

There is an average leverage index (aLi)which describes how much pressure a pitcher sees when they enter the game. Numbers greater than 1 mean high pressure and less than 1 is low pressure. The Royals score is 0.963. The league average is 1.017. They have the 4th easiest pressure when they take the mound.

Royals Relievers, their aLi, and the percentage of inherited runners scored:
Soria, 2.028, 67% (6 of 9, 3 of 3 in his last outing)
Bale, 1.414, 59% (10 of 17)
Mahay, 0.674, 57% (13 of 23)
Farnsworth, 0.514, 56% (5 of 9)
Cruz, 1.127, 54% (7 of 13)
Wright, 0.978, 52% (15 of 29)
Tejeda, 0.688 37% (7 of 19)
Colon, 0.765 27% (6 of 22)


So Soria comes in to the game in the highest pressure (8th highest in the majors) and gives up the most inherited runners. But the problem is the Royals keep sending out players (Mahay, Wright and Bale) who consistently give up runs with people on base, in easy situations.

Example: John Bale (not picking on anyone, just found a good example, even though every time Bale comes into a game with any lead I do think the Royals will lose the game) comes into the game Wednesday night against the Angels in the 7th inning with 2 out, man on first. Bannister has done a great job of keeping a lead and going relatively deep into a game (I say relatively because my memory of the Royals does not include a lot of 7+ inning starting pitchers other than Grienke and sometimes Meche). The Royals lead 6-3. Pretty comfortable, get one out, hand it off to the setup man and then the Mexicutioner to close it out.

So what does Bale do? First batter gets a single. Now 1st and 3rd. Next batter, single. Run scores. Then, he is able to get an out. In my book, if a reliever comes in with a man on 1st and more than a 1 run lead, he should get charged for that earned run. In this case Banny gets an earned run and the Royals are on their way to a loss.

Our starting pitchers have lost 11 wins becuase our bullpen has blown it (thank you baseball-reference.com). They also have 12 "tough losses" (losses in quality starts).

Now it is not all pitching seeing as how the Royals get the second least run support of any team in the majors, but today was about pitching.




That said, I am still going to watch the games on gamecast (I work evenings) and still mutter under my breath every time something goes wrong and get extremely excited when someone hits a home run or gets a timely hit. I know no other way.

Let me know your thoughts on being a fan.

Posting again soon,

DDSF