Sweet Mexicutioner

While the weather in April is a constant source of frustration for me, there is one thing that's always a certainty: the return of baseball. I'll admit that while I've always maintained allegiance to the Royals, it's been pretty tough to be excited about the team in the past. Since Dayton Moore came on board things have been getting better, and there are legitimate reasons to be excited about the team and the direction it is heading.

As you probably know, the Royals were postponed on Opening Day due to bad weather in Chicago. So Tuesday was their first game, and I managed to watch the first 7 1/2 innings. Meche was great, and the offense showed some signs against Buehrle, even though they were unable to capitalize with runners in scoring position.

The Royals held a 2-1 lead going into the eighth inning, and as all current fans know, Jim Thome hit a three run bomb off of Kyle Farnsworth to ruin the game for us all. Yes, it nullified Meche's great performance. Yes, it displayed some questionable decision making by manager Trey Hillman. But the worst thing of all: it kept us from watching Joakim Soria.

So last night, while unable to watch the game live, I did get to watch Soria pitch thanks to DVR. I've never enjoyed watching a pitcher as much as I like to watch this guy. He's absolutely unshakable and relentlessly attacks hitters. The other Royals pitchers will almost guarantee that every first pitch of Soria will be a strike. I expect the ones that aren't are on purpose too, just to throw off the hitters!

There were a few Soria stat gems last night from Ryan Lefebvre that have to be passed along:

1. Soria had more saves last year than hits given up. That's crazy! He notched 42 saves while only giving up 39 hits. So he was more likely to save the game than even give up a hit. Not a run, a hit. Outstanding!


2. This is even crazier, and is tied to the first. Last year's saves leader (which was an MLB record) was Francisco Rodriguez, with 62. In those 62 saves, he had a 1-2-3 inning 21 times. That's 34% The NL leader, Brad Lidge, accomplished that feat 25 times in 41 saves (61%). Not bad! So how about Soria? Oh, just a meager 36/42. That just blew me away. 86% of the time he just mowed them down, 1-2-3. No walks, no hits, just pitching dominance.
   

Naturally he locked down his first 1-2-3 save of the '09 season last night. But even that's not the best part of watching Soria. No, the best part is when he gets two strikes on a hitter. The first two guys he faced last night, Carlos Quentin and Jim Thome, popped out before getting to two strikes. That's probably a wise thing to do, because getting that second strike typically spells disaster for a hitter.

But Jermaine Dye was not so lucky. I love what Rany wrote about last night's encounter between Dye and Soria: "When Soria worked the count to 2-2 on Dye, it was clear that the Mexicutioner was about to unleash the Guillotine, as I call his vicious (and delicious) slow curveball that he dispatches his victims with. I knew it was coming, you knew it, I imagine Dye knew it, and we all knew that there was nothing Dye could do about it anyway." Yes, I knew it, and I couldn't wait to see it. It was a thing of beauty.

As I said earlier, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the Royals this year. Meche is very good and Grienke could be amazing. The lineup has considerably more pop this year and the team has a newly renovated stadium to play in. But the best thing will still be hoping for a close game in the ninth and seeing the Mexicutioner dispatch his victims with ease.