THE BOTTOM LINE
SATURDAY, MAY 19, 2012
KENNEDY LOSES FOURTH STRAIGHT DECISION
THE BOTTOM LINE: Ian Kennedy lost a fourth straight decision after starting the season with a 3-0 record, and Kennedy's poor interleague history contiued.
Kennedy dropped to 2-5 with an earned run average of above 6.00 in career interleague starts, including a 1-5 mark with an earned run average of 7.00 at American League parks. Kenney's lone interleague road win was last season at Kansas City.
ROYALS 7, DBACKS 3 (MLB.com): It's been a tough month for Ian Kennedy.
Saturday night's outing continued a string of unsuccessful starts for the Arizona right-hander in the D-backs' 7-3 loss to the Royals at Kauffman Stadium.
Kennedy surrendered six runs on eight hits, including a pair of home runs, over 4 1/3 innings. The long ball has been particularly damaging for Kennedy of late, and the Royals' pair made it five home runs allowed in his last three starts.
Royals designated hitter Billy Butler hit his second homer in as many nights in the bottom of the third inning -- a two-run shot over the left-center field fence to extend Kansas City's lead to 3-0.
"It was a 2-0 fastball," Kennedy said. "[Butler] did what he was supposed to do with it. It was right over the plate. It was supposed to be inside, and it wasn't."
The next inning, it was third baseman Mike Moustakas who got in on the home run action -- crushing a 3-1 pitch over the D-backs' bullpen in right field to make it 4-0.
"Billy Butler, he's a good hitter. Moustakas is another good hitter. They have good guys in their lineup, I just haven't had that much success lately," Kennedy said. "I wasn't sharp at all. They did what they needed to do."
The wheels really fell off in the bottom of the fifth, as the Royals tacked on two more runs. Alcides Escobar, Jarrod Dyson and Eric Hosmer picked up three straight singles to open the inning, with Hosmer's scoring Escobar. Butler then drove in Dyson with a sacrifice fly, making it 6-0, as the Royals chased Kennedy from the game.
The month of May has been a rough one for Kennedy. He's lost all four games he's started, and his May ERA stands at 5.92.
"I'm going to try to learn from this," Kennedy said. "Every time I fail, succeed, anything, I try to learn from it, make myself a little better the next time."
Kennedy hasn't picked up a win since April 22, and the D-backs have lost each of his last five starts. It hasn't been entirely his fault, though, as the Arizona offense has mustered little run support. In those last five starts, the D-backs have scored a total of just eight runs.
The D-backs' offense made a habit of squandering scoring chances in this one as well. Three times in the first four innings, the D-backs led off with back-to-back hits and failed to score.
Arizona's best chance came in the second with runners at the corners and none out. But Cody Ransom struck out, followed by a Ryan Roberts flyout to center. Jason Kubel, the runner at third, decided to tag and try to score, but the center fielder Dyson made a tremendous throw to nail Kubel at the plate.
"I knew he wasn't the quickest runner," Dyson said, "so I just tried to get behind the ball and just come up making a good throw instead of just being quick with everything and not getting a good throw off."
D-backs manager Kirk Gibson was unhappy with his team's inability to cash in on their scoring chances.
"We had so many opportunities in the first three innings. We were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position. We left five guys on," Gibson said. "First time they get on, boom-boom, they score a run. We had opportunities. We were very impatient early on in the game. With guys in scoring position, we've got to do a better job than that."
Despite all of the early baserunners, the D-backs couldn't get to Royals starter Bruce Chen.
Chen buckled down with runners on, and he stifled the D-backs in every scoring opportunity. Chen went 6 1/3 innings and allowed two runs on eight hits and two walks. He struck out four batters in the victory.
"He threw pitches that we didn't think he was going to throw," D-backs outfielder Justin Upton said. "He didn't necessarily have a go-to pitch. He throws all of his pitches, and he threw all of them in different counts. He never gave in to us. He never threw us the fastball in hitter's counts and made us guess a little less aggressive. We couldn't be as aggressive as we wanted to on him, and it cost us."
The D-backs finally got on the scoreboard in the top of the seventh. Paul Goldschmidt doubled off Chen to open the inning, and two batters later, Roberts doubled to plate Goldschmidt and the D-backs trailed 7-1.
Royals manager Ned Yost lifted Chen after the sac fly, opting to play it safe rather than let his starter keep battling.
"I knew we couldn't take any chances," Yost said. "That's a good offensive club over there, and he was at the hundred-pitch mark on a hot night. We just didn't want to give them any footholds."
After Chen was replaced with reliever Aaron Crow, Willie Bloomquist singled to right field, scoring Roberts and cutting the deficit to five. The D-backs added another run in the top of the eighth on Kubel's sacrifice fly.
The D-backs still have an opportunity to win the series on Sunday.
"It's important that we come back," Upton said. "They jumped out on us early [Saturday], and we've got to come and try to do the same thing [Sunday], put some runs up early, try to establish ourselves and try to get this win. We don't expect to leave here without winning the series, and this doesn't throw a damper on that at all."
CAUGHT MY EYE
TED JOHNSON OPENS UP
THE BOTTOM LINE: the only thing that is surprising is that Johnson maintained a low profile for as long as he did.
THE STORY (Boston Herald, Dan O'Brien): Junior Seau’s death compelled former Patriots [team stats] linebacker Ted Johnson to step up to the podium yesterday and share his horror stories of life with more than 100 concussions.
“A lot of guys struggle with this stuff, but they struggle in silence,” Johnson said.
He told the audience at Children Hospital Boston’s ninth-annual Sports-Related Conference on Concussion and Spine Injury that Seau’s death has “brought the biggest spotlight on this. It makes you take inventory on your own mortality.”
In an impassioned speech before the conference, he called head trauma a “terrifying issue.”
Johnson said he could have been in Seau’s shoes had he not sought treatment for his concussions. He said yesterday he still hasn’t been able to speak to his former teammate’s family in the two weeks since his suicide.
“I haven’t, and I don’t even know how to go about that,” Johnson said.
“I think his family is just overwhelmed,” he said. “This is all so new to them. If they ever wanted, I would love to talk to them.”
During his 30-minute speech, Johnson, who said he suffered between 100 and 150 concussions in his career, called Seau’s death “the tipping point” of the concussion issue and called on the NFL to better address the problem.
While it hasn’t been ruled whether concussions had a role in Seau’s death, Johnson said: “You can’t tell me the head trauma he got over the course of his career didn’t have some effect.”
TOP OF THE MORNING
RODRIGUEZ FACES CHALLENGES AT ARIZONA
THE BOTTOM LINE: Mike Stoops deserves credit for meeting with Rodriguez and helping the transition period. Not many in Stoops' position, in fact few, if any, would have offered assistance.
THE STORY (Sports Illustrated, George Schroeder): They seemed like an odd couple. It wasn't surprising to see Arizona's new football coach chowing down at some of the city's best steakhouses shortly after his arrival last December. Or to see Arizona's former football coach in some of his favorite restaurants, either. But together?
"It was just two old friends eating dinner," Rich Rodriguez said. But Mike Stoops admitted: "Some people probably didn't really know how to put that together."
Consider that by then, back in December, Rodriguez was already renting Stoops' house in the Catalina Foothills on Tucson's north side. It came fully furnished, move-in ready. "I want him to buy it," Stoops said. "I'll give him a good deal." He already may have. The coaches had a dozen conversations, give or take, about the situation Rodriguez was taking over (he also spoke several times with former coach Dick Tomey). Stoops ran down the roster. He explained the politics, positives and problems. He introduced Rodriguez to his friends. And then he left town, joining his brother at Oklahoma, and left the keys with Rodriguez.
The entire process so far seems to have been seamless. That's one of the first things everyone wants to know, of course. After an uncomfortable-turned-untenable three years at Michigan, fit is a very big deal. Rest easy. Arizona feels, Rodriguez says, a lot like West Virginia -- except he doesn't need a lawnmower and he's looking out for rattlesnakes. There aren't long-established, overbearing traditions. No one ever talks about being an Arizona Man. It would be nice if you could drop in a "Bear Down" every so often, and talk about winning the Territorial Cup, and mention how it's long past time the Wildcats reached the Rose Bowl. Otherwise, you want to change things up? Have at it.
"They're hungry for success," Rodriguez said. "We've never been to the Rose Bowl, but we've been close."
After Michigan, after a year away from coaching, he's hungry, too. Fifteen spring practices went well, "but I'd rather have 30." Yes, he knows it makes for an easy reference to the NCAA trouble he got into at Michigan over excessive offseason workouts. He says it anyway. And laughs. Rodriguez also says the fit in Ann Arbor might have gotten a lot better if he'd been allowed to stick around -- we all saw the Wolverines' success in 2011 -- but he laughs again.
"Just kidding," he said. "But I do feel great about this fit."
The dual challenge during the spring was installing the system while evaluating players. The good news: Rodriguez believes there's talent on the roster. In Matt Scott, he has an athletic senior quarterback who -- here's the word again -- fits the spread option. Rodriguez was concerned, though, by the Wildcats' overall conditioning and dedication. The former he attributed to the long layoff after the end of the regular season last November ("Elite athletes can't take a month and a half off," he said), but also to a general lack of commitment.
"We want our players to wake up thinking about football and go to bed thinking about football," he said. "If they're in class, think about class. If they're in church, think about church. But in their free time I want them thinking about football.
"They like football. I don't know if we have enough guys who love it."
The question goes beyond the players. At Arizona, Rodriguez finds a foundation laid by Stoops, who was 41-50 in eight seasons and had the Wildcats edging toward respectable at times. Perhaps more important, Rodriguez watches the foundation being laid in the north end zone of Arizona Stadium. Visit Rodriguez's office -- on the ground floor of the McKale Center, Arizona's basketball arena -- and he starts by showing off artist's renderings of the new complex: football offices, locker rooms, weight rooms, a cafeteria. Ultra-modern, with all the bells and whistles, it's scheduled to be completed in time for the 2013 season.
"Everybody's doing it," said Rodriguez of the upgrades, but that's not quite right. Almost everybody has already done it, which is one reason Stoops, since his departure, has publicly questioned the school's commitment to football. He said he never showed a recruit the Wildcats' locker room. The new facility? "It's something we desperately needed," Stoops said. "We didn't have it. It's bizarre we'd gone this long. It makes no sense."
The importance, according to Rodriguez, is in "the message it sends: We are committed to football." They'd better be, because it seems to be the case these days all around the Pac-12, especially with the promise of an infusion of cash from commissioner Larry Scott's TV deals. And it's certainly true of Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne, a rising star who zeroed in on Rodriguez shortly after firing Stoops in midseason. As detailed by Andy Staples for Sports Illustrated last December, Urban Meyer told Byrne that Rodriguez was one of the five best offensive coaches in college football. Byrne liked the idea of the no-huddle spread, both from a competitive standpoint and for entertainment purposes. He liked what he learned while carefully vetting Rodriguez. He loved what he heard when they talked.
There's no questioning Rodriguez's commitment. He spent last season working as a studio analyst for CBS Sports Network. During his free time, he visited coaching friends -- including Bob Stoops at Oklahoma and, in a visit that was retroactively awkward, Jeff Tedford at Cal -- and studied their programs. When Arizona AD Byrne called, Rodriguez was more than ready to return.
"I always had the hunger, anyway, as a coach to try to prove myself," Rodriguez said. "I think the year off gave me more."
Arizona will present a challenge. Rodriguez is working to change the program's culture, and if history is a guide, his no-huddle spread option (and also his favored 3-3-5 defense) should immediately cause trouble for opponents, even if they're familiar with the similar version run by Oregon. But it doesn't appear to be a quick fix. Though the Wildcats went to three straight bowls under Stoops, they slid to 4-8 last season. There's a clear gap between Arizona and the Pac-12's upper echelon.
"Sometimes I have to remind myself that it's the first year," said Rodriguez, who has a five-year contract worth $9.55 million. "One of my worst traits is I have no patience for anything. Nobody wants it to happen more than me. You've got to build it the right way. There's no shortcuts."
But there are head starts, which is what Stoops says he wanted to give Rodriguez in those medium-rare conversations. Before Stoops moved back to Norman, Okla., he and Rodriguez went out for dinner several times. "It was, 'Oooh, what are they doing?'" recalled Seth Stevenson, the manager at Sullivan's, of the night they ate in his restaurant. "There were a couple of double takes -- but it was really cool."
Once, at McMahon's Prime Steakhouse, the coaches ended up on the patio, at Stoops' regular table with several friends, smoking cigars. "I just introduced him to my friends, good friends of the program," Stoops said. "I don't want people to be divided. No reason for that, hopefully."
Bob McMahon, the restaurant's owner, joined them for a while that evening. "It didn't feel odd," McMahon said. At this point, nothing does.
"I kind of know where all the bodies are buried and the traps are laid, you know?" Rodriguez said. "Now, I've just got to figure out what we've got to do to get over that hump."
