Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bay boy is Kazuo Matsui and he's here to remind you that Hideki Matsui (no relation) is still productive sometimes.

Hey kids, I'm doing some late night house keeping so I can concentrate on the first week of my fantasy football leagues. I'm also very busy studying for a fantasy hockey draft that will probably never happen. All of my old Jobu rules apply, so let's get to it...

Rockies 2, Diamondbacks 1. Rox continue to get top bill, extending their winning streak to 9 with a perfect September. Ubaldo Jimenez went 6 innings surrendering a run while striking out 8. Colorado remains 2.5 games out of first in the West while the Padres and Giants duel it out. New blog favorite Troy Tulowitzki went a disappointing 0-4 and CarGo only saw action as a defensive replacement.

Rangers 7, Yankees 6. Another one run game in the ALDS preview series and the Rangers won again. The Rangers used all of their relief pitchers last night and resorted to beer and cotton candy vendors to close the door on the Yanks. Doug from section 112 was especially effective tossing 0 innings of 0 hit ball.

Reds 5, Pirates 4 (10). Joey Votto went 1-3 with a solo shot. There won't be a Triple Crown winner this season. Unless Pujols has a falling out with Tony La Russa and CarGo gets to play the rest of his games at Coors Field. The MVP voting should be interesting though and whatever the outcome is, I'll disagree.

Angels 7, Mariners 4. Hideki Matsui went 1-1 with a home run and a pair of walks. Coming into tonight's game, Matsui was hitting .381/.500/.524 in September. With the Angels a mere 10 games out of the West, Matsui picked a great time to get hot. Thanks for costing the Angels the 12th pick overall next year, jerk. King Felix gave up 4 earned in a messy start dooming his Cy Young chances. He's still the best pitcher in baseball but at 11-11, good luck sir.

Royals 8, White Sox 2. The Royals offense, inspired by the Pat White signing, unloaded all over Edwin Jackson. Wilson Betemit and Kila Ka'aihue both went 3-4 and Kyle Davies even scored a win. Royals 2016!

Braves 6, Cardinals 3 (12). Jason Heyward went 1-4 with a home run while Albert Pujols went 1-3 and didn't hit a home run. Who's the Pujols now, Pujols?

Twins 1, Indians 0. Something funny. I'm tired.

Royals Moving To Spread Offense

Kansas City is headed toward their 5th consecutive season finishing in the bottom 5 in runs scored in the American League. I should note that I only went back 5 years so that stat might be somewhat of an understatement. In times like these, it's important to shake things up. So the Royals signed former Miami Dolphin and West Virginia quarterback Pat White to run their new-look spread offense which I can only assume means trying to get hit by a pitch and then stealing second, third and home. It should be an exciting new brand of baseball in Kansas City.

GM Dayton Moore hasn't had much success in putting together an offensive juggernaut that doesn't strike out or get on base. They're going to finish with the fewest team strikeouts and actually will finish above league average in OBP this year but will still finish next to the bottom 5 in scoring. How does that happen to a team that has a league average .301 BABIP? I'm sure the guys at Fangraphs could tell you but I figure it's a second to worst Home Run/Fly Ball ratio of 6.3% and Yuni Betancourt. Brandon Wood would like to know why Yuni Betancourt has a starting short stop gig in the majors. But I digress.

The Royals have a pretty good looking minor league system and I like Moore's new fangled approach toward former prospects. I don't know what he's been feeding Wilson Betemit this year but of all of sudden Betemit has 10 homers and a .297/.383/.522 line in 240 PA. Is Pat White ever going to contribute at the major league level? I don't know. He was drafted by the Angels coming out of high school in the fourth round in 2004. The Angels drafted him again in 2007 followed by the Reds in 2008 and the Yankees in 2009. He's a huckuva athlete (quote sponsored by John Madden) and probably would do less damage than Yuni Betancourt if the Royals plugged him into short tomorrow.

The Royals will allow Pat White to continue his pursuit of playing professional football but I'm rooting for him to make it to the majors and make an impact for the Royals. Just imagine the thousands of words Joe Posnanski could write about him.

[alternate WVU image, SFW but still fun]