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Inning 4

I read somewhere that the Royals have the best contact rate in the AL, or lowest K rate, or something, and ... obviously Butler, Gordon, and Hosmer are a rough ride for any righty.

They adjusted, in-game, to the fact that Taijuan was throwing only two pitches, both of them hard.  (This is what Texas and LAA do to annoy Felix:  focus on his 93 fastball and 91 "changeup."  They start their bats "in time" to the expected pitch, tipping their caps on the curve and slider.  Even you could hit 95 MPH in the cage if you started your bat like a metronome.)

Despite the fact that the Royals were cheating, and that Taijuan was cheerfully allowing them to do so, they still didn't do much.

..........

They wound up with four runs in the 4th, but as Gordon pointed out in the Shout Box, it was the cheapest four runs you've seen all year:

• Leadoff walk (after Taijuan sat in the dugout for 20 minutes)
• Hosmer soft line-drive single, on inside 90 MPH cutter (see upcoming article on Taijuan's cut fastball)
• Butler seeing-eye grounder past SS for a single, on a knee-high 95 fastball (Brendan Ryan woulda got it)
• 95 outside fastball on the black, Moustakas tried to pull it, routine out
• Lousy curve ball, skied to LF for an out
• 94 MPH inside jam pitch JAMMED David Lough, who bloinked a parachute job juuuuust inside the RF foul line for a double
• Low 95 fastball --- > pounded into the dirt in front of the plate, hopped through Miller and Franklin for a 1B (Brendan Ryan woulda got it)
• Caught stealing, inning over

There ain't any way you're going to do less with the bat, and get more on the scoreboard.   So far, Taijuan has thrown 149 pitches in the big leagues, and not a single one of them has been launched.

The point isn't that Taijuan is invincible.  The point is just that his fastball and cutter are AWFULLY hard to square up.  They can guess fastball, get fastball and still get the bat knocked out of their hands.

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Inning 5

Escobar guessed fastball, hit one as hard as he can, but .... it was like 40 feet short of the fence.  Fly ball out, center field.  See our remarks on Jarrod Dyson.

Gordon got on top of a high fastball, pulled it hard, but ... didn't square it up.  Routine groundball out, 4-3.

Taijuan rolled a terrible curve ball high to Bonifacio, then gave in with a 94 fastball Right. Down. the Heart. and Bonifacio tatoo'ed it.  Right to Dustin Ackley, who I think stepped back two paces to catch it.  See our remarks on Jarrod Dyson.

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Dr's Diagnosis - "Any resemblance to pitching is purely coincidental"

By now you can write the diagnosis yourself.  Like Rocky Balboa standing in the middle of the ring, just whaling with lefts and rights to the body, all technique forgotten an hour ago ... Taijuan was just firing his fastball and cutter, hoping they'd hit the zone ... any resemblance to MLB(TM) pitching was purely coincidental.

For Rocky, the primal approach worked out okay.  Due to special circumstances.

For Taijuan, the question becomes "what happens when people have to deal with a Pedro curve, and they can't cheat any more?  Or he rolls a Clemens splitter out of dry dock?  Or he can throw that 97 MPH where he threw it to Gordon, first inning?  Or when he learns to expand the zone with two strikes?"

The Good Ole Boyz will tell you, to a man, that Taijuan has #1 starter potential.  When they say #1 starter, they don't mean Jered Weaver; when they say #1 starter, they mean Justin Verlander.  Dr. D agrees with this, and he has told you exactly why.  Tell him where he's going wrong.

Cheers,

Jeff