Royals Win With An Offensive Explosion

Sweeney has a career-high 5-hit game

The Royals won an exciting game tonight and I was fortunate to see it at the "K". The streaky Royals' offense produced 12 runs on 21 hits and the Royals beat the Twins 12-8. Mike Sweeney had his first 5-hit game and had a pair of double and 3 RBIs. David DeJesus went 3 for 5 and hit a home run to RF. DeJesus also made a great catch in centerfield and was able to throw out the runner at first for a double play. Long, Brown, Teahan, Gotay, and Berroa also had multi-hit games. The Royals looked like a completely different team at the plate. The bullpen did a pretty good job. Jensen was a sore spot, but pitched about as well as expected. Nunez came in and pitched well. Nunez had a good outing yesterday as well. Nunez was hitting 95-96 mph on the radar gun. Sisco came in and bailed out Gobble in the eighth inning. Mike MacDougal struck out the first two batters he faced in the ninth. Then, he gave up a double and lost his control. He walked the next batter he faced and fell behind the other hitter. But, he was able to get the final out and no runs scored in the ninth. MacDougal always makes the ninth inning more exciting than it needs to be.

There were some bad events as well though, but the good ones prevailed. JP Howell struggled with his command and was getting hit pretty hard. It's only a matter of time before Howell heads back to the minors. He'll be a good pitcher in time, his promotion was just very premature. Gobble's stuff looked pretty good, but his command is still a problem. He also needs to mix in his very good slider more often. Terrence Long had an embarassing game. He popped up a bunt attempt and the pitcher missed it, but it resulted in a double play with Buck and DeJesus being picked off. Long also should have slid into home, but instead tried to take out the catcher and failed miserably. Long also doesn't seem to know what the cutoff man is supposed to do. I'd really like to see the Royals trade Terrence Long. Buddy Bell is going to play him everyday until we do. Costa is a better player than Long and he has a future with the team.

The umpire crew has been awful during this series. Last night, DeJesus clearly checked his swing and Bell had a case, but the umpire just stood and glared at Bell. Tonight, Emil Brown was clearly safe in the 6th inning and that should not have been a double play. Buddy Bell was then ejected by first-base umpire Lance Barksdale after arguing the call. It didn't matter in the end because the Royals still won.

The Twins didn't look like the Twins teams I'm using to seeing. They played poor defense and the pitching got torched by a weak Royals team. Santana and Radke better have great second halfs, otherwise they will have a tough time winning the wildcard.

Here are a couple more pictures from tonight's game:

DeJesus hits a 2-run homer

Bell argues a bad call made by the first base umpire