Tag: Kansas City

Royals Success is Cruel Reminder of Tribe Inactivity

Let this soak in for a minute…the Kansas City Royals are the American League Champions.

They will host the first two games of the World Series next week and have provided their fans with three weeks of excitement.  We remember that feeling from 2007.

During the regular season, the Royals won exactly four more games than the Indians (89 vs. 85) and based on run differential, the Royals should have won 84 games as opposed to the Tribe’s 83.  As you can see there isn’t much difference between the two clubs.

Kansas City GM Drayton Moore went all in to make the post-season, perhaps because the Royals last trip to the playoffs came in 1985.  He traded for right-handed hitter Josh Willingham, relief pitcher Jason Frasor, and veteran left-handed bat Raul Ibanez.

As we have well documented, the Indians traded Justin Masterson and Asdrubal Cabrera, and brought in OF J.B. Shuck and utility man Chris Gimenez.

The point isn’t the contributions made by the players who joined Kansas City in the last two months of the season, it’s that they made a commitment to the rest of the players on the roster.

We remember in 1995 when then GM John Hart traded for Ken Hill at the trade deadline even though the Indians were way ahead in the AL Central Division standings.  They didn’t need to add a pitcher, but Hart wanted to send the message to everyone on that team that the organization was it in to win a World Series.

And think about it, what message did GM Chris Antonetti send to this year’s team when he didn’t help them out on July 31st?

Kansas City’s success this year is a reminder that baseball is the one sport where getting into the playoffs gives you a chance to be the World Series Champions.  The percentages of the eighth seed in the NBA playoffs advancing past the first round are very slim, they are usually dominated by the best team in each conference.

In the NFL, although it was happened that a team gets on a roll, in most years, the last team to make the post-season, the sixth seed in each conference, has a lot of disadvantages.  They have to play all of their games on the road, and they have to play three games instead of two for the top seeds.

But in baseball, if you can get in, you have a shot.  It comes down to pitching, hitters getting hot at the right time, and solid bullpens.  That’s why the San Francisco Giants, on the verge of advancing to their third World Series in five years, have missed the playoffs twice in the same span.

They have a team perfectly set up for the playoffs, but sometimes they don’t hit enough to qualify for the post-season over a 162 game slate.

This year, if the Giants and Royals play in the Fall Classic, we will be assured that a great team will not win the Series.  That isn’t belittling either squad, but it is simply a fact, and it goes to show how important it can be to just make the playoffs.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear the Cleveland Indians didn’t go the extra mile to get in even though they were right on the doorstep.

The front office has to look at the Royals and think “that could be us”.

KM

Browns Overcame Horrid First Half to Come Close

It is too bad the Cleveland Browns thought today’s game with Kansas City started at 1 PM Central Time.

We mean, that had to be the reason for the horrific performance until halfway through the second quarter at Arrowhead Stadium in a game the Browns ultimately lost 23-17 to fall to 3-5 on the season.

That first quarter and a half was perhaps the worst football a Cleveland team has played since they returned to the NFL in 1999.

They couldn’t stop Kansas City on the ground and through the air.  The offense couldn’t even get a first down, let alone a touchdown.

And then it all changed.

Jason Campbell hit a pass to TE Jordan Cameron for a first down, and then hit WR Josh Gordon on a flea flicker for a TD.  And just like that, the Browns were back in the game.

The Chiefs answered with a scoring pass to Dexter McCluster, but that was about it for the Kansas City offense for the day, as they managed just three points for the balance of the game, and that was because the Browns turned the ball over on downs with a little over two minutes left.

We have written about halftime adjustments before, but today coordinator Ray Horton put pressure on Alex Smith and played man-to-man on the outside with his cornerbacks and shutdown the KC attack.

Smith was sacked five times in the second half, all by different players as Horton brought pressure from different spots.  The Chiefs, who converted eight of their first 10 third down opportunities, converted just two of their last nine in that situation.

Campbell was very good in his first start, hitting 22 of 36 throws for 293 yards and two touchdown passes, and overcame four dropped balls by WR Davone Bess, including one on a fourth down that would have given Cleveland a chance to tie or perhaps win the game.

The veteran reminded fans once again of Brandon Weeden’s weakness of holding on to the football way to long.  Campbell was decisive with his throws, and because of that, he was sacked just once by the team that leads the AFC in that category.

As for Bess, not only did he dropped four passes, he also fumbled a punt which would have given the offense the ball at around midfield after the defense backed up Kansas City.

That was a momentum changing play to say the least.

We will have to again ask why the front office cannot go out and get another running back to help out, as it was evident once again that the Browns can’t run the ball.

Willis McGahee had nine carries for 28 yards, but had half those yards on one carry.  Chris Ogbonnaya had 12 yards on three carries, all of them on one run.

The Browns simply have too many running plays which result in no yards or in negative yards.  There has to be someone available who can do better than that.

If this was Gordon’s last game as a Brown, he went out with a bang, grabbing five passes for 132 yards.  In the three games he played with someone other than Weeden at the helm, he has caught 19 passes for 347 yards and three touchdowns.  He caught 13 passes in games Weeden played.

Cameron also played another strong game with four receptions for 81 yards.

There should be no question that Campbell is the starter going forward, and you have to think it may be time to cut ties with Weeden, as it is pretty obvious at this point that the offense problems begin and end with him.

WIth a home game against the Ravens next week, the Browns have reason to hope they can go into the bye week at 4-5 and a chance.

They just need to start playing when the opening kickoff occurs.

JD