Omaha draws to within 1.5 games of first place Iowa

Scott Thorman
(Photo: Eldon Lindsay/
omahastormchasers.com)

Don’t close the history books on baseball at Rosenblatt Stadium quite yet. The Omaha Royals might have a new chapter to add. With the Royals dramatic 2-0 win in the bottom of the 11th inning last night on a walk off home run by Scott Thorman off Iowa reliever Jeff Stevens, they have moved to within 1.5 games of PCL American North division leading Iowa Cubs.

The Royals have 12 games remaining in the season – eight of which are at home and four of those are against the Cubs. Including the win last night, the Royals are 61-41 at night and eight of their next nine games are night games. The final three games of the season at Oklahoma City are day games.

Omaha was a last a playoff contender in 2005 when they finished three games back. The last time they won their division was 1999 when they finished with an 81-60 record. Their 73-59 record this season is a quite a turnaround from 2009 when the Royals finished in last place with a 64-80 record, 13 games back.

One of the biggest turnarounds this season has been the bullpen. In 2009, the pen was 20-38 with a 4.51 ERA and 24 blown saves. This year, the pen is 32-21 with a 3.53 ERA and 11 blown saves. Last night, the pen came through again. Louis Coleman tossed three scoreless innings and Tim Collins closed out the game with a scoreless 11th, picking up his second win of the season.

But starter Anthony Lerew was equally impressive. He threw seven shutout innings, giving up six hits and three walks while striking out six. He lowered his league leading ERA to 2.72.

In the bottom of the 11th, Ed Lucas drew a two-out walk, setting the stage for Thorman who connected on a 1-0 pitch from Stevens and drove it over the wall in right center field. Here’s a video of his home run:

5 reasons to keep the Omaha Royals' name

(Casey posses with fans.)

Fans of the Omaha Royals have until September 6 to visit the team's website to submit their team name ideas for the 2011 season and beyond. Omaha will begin playing in their new Sarpy County ballpark next season making this a good time to consider a name change if one is going to be made.

Club officials say the “Omaha” portion of the team name will continue. They are seeking fan feedback regarding the second portion of the team name. Fans can submit "Royals” if they want the team name to remain the same.

On September 13, the Royals will release the top 24 names submitted and from September 13 through September 27 the public will be able to vote on their three favorite names. On October 4, the team will release a list of the top nine team names remaining under consideration and fans will get to vote for the one name they prefer.

Then in November, the team will announce their team name, mascot, logos and uniforms at an event that will be open to the public.

“We encourage everybody in the metro area to take part in this process and help decide the name of Omaha’s Triple-A baseball team, as we enter the exciting new era of moving into a state-of-the art Minor League ballpark,” said Royals Vice President/General Manager Martie Cordaro. “Our owners, management and staff all value our fans’ opinions and feelings and are excited to include them in the process of selecting a team name.”

Now that you know all the details, allow me to make a case for keeping the team name the same:

1. The Omaha Royals’ team name is rich in tradition. My mom took me to Omaha Royals games when I was a young boy. I bet your parents did too. Now we are taking our children to Omaha Royals games. Let’s give our kids a chance to do the same thing.

2. Omaha has one of the longest running affiliations in baseball with its parent club. Keeping the team name as the Omaha Royals is the perfect way to honor that affiliation. If the affiliation with Kansas City ever does end, then a new team name can be considered.

3. Regardless of where you stood on the issue of moving to a new stadium, keeping the Omaha Royals’ team name is the perfect way to hang on to tradition. How cool would it be to sit in the new ballpark in Sarpy County while watching the Omaha Royals play and still be able to talk about names such as George Brett, Willie Wilson, Frank White, Mark Gubicza, Paul Splittorff, Jerry Cram, Fran Healy and so many others who wore the Omaha Royals’ uniform?

4. The Omaha Royals’ team name is an established brand. I run into people on a weekly basis who still have no idea the team will be playing in a new stadium next season. They are nominal baseball fans who recognize the current team name. They would probably not recognize a new team name and therefore may have no connection with the team in 2011.

5. We’ve tried to change the team name in the past and it was a complete failure. Remember the Omaha Golden Spikes fiasco (1999-2001)?

Jack McKeon reminisces about his days as manager of the Omaha Royals

Jack McKeon (Photo: Stan Hall)

You might think winning the 1970 Championship as the manager of the Omaha Royals would rank pretty far down the list of accomplishments on Jack McKeon’s resume considering he went on to manage the 2003 Florida Marlins to the World Series title, was twice named the NL manager of the year (1999 and 2003) and managed some 15 years at the big league level with stops in Kansas City (1973-75), Oakland (1977-78), San Diego (1988-90), Cincinnati (1997-2000) and Florida (2003-05).

But McKeon holds the 1970 title in high esteem.

“You’ve gotta look back at my career and say number one is winning the World Series in 2003,” said McKeon, who was at Rosenblatt last night for a dinner honoring the 1970 Championship team. “Number two was in 1999 when I was manager of the year in Cincinnati and we won 96 games and didn’t make the playoffs. And I think after that, number three would be the 1970 team in Omaha.”

McKeon reminisced about that team with the media.

“In ‘70 we started off very slow,” McKeon said. “We had such good, resilient players and despite being out of first place by 10 or 12 games on July the 6th, we came back and won the thing. That’s why I always have fond memories of the ‘70 team. They were like biscuits. You know, when things got hot, they rose to the occasion.”

He didn’t need much prompting to continue talking about the team.

“The ’70 team was special. We never got to .500 until August 1 that year and I kept preaching to the players about the fact that, ‘Hey, get to .500 and we’ll roll.’ Well, you know, I was trying to be politically correct and trying to be optimistic and maybe deep in my heart I didn’t believe it, but I was trying to sell them guys and trying to motivate them. But we got to .500 on August 1st. From August the 1st on, I think we won like 26 out of the next 34 games and ended up winning the pennant by two or three or four games.”

McKeon’s memory is spot on. The Royals went 73-65 in 1970 and went on to win the East Division of the American Association by three games over the Iowa Oaks. Then they went on to defeat the Denver Bears four games to one to win the championship. The 1970 title was the second one for Omaha in just its second year of existence.

Was there one particular moment that turned the season?

“We struggled early in the year and I made a call to Kansas City and I said, ‘Look, we’ve got a bunch of old guys here that can’t play. Let’s get them out of here and bring some young kids in.’ That’s when we brought in the Lloyd Gladdens, the Jim Yorks, and a Charlie Days, and [Ted] Parks at third base. We brought some of those young players in and they kind of sparked us and, you know, we just started to roll.”

The 1970 season wasn’t the first time McKeon pleaded for younger players in Omaha. He recalled his battle to get young players up with the 1969 team too.

“I remember Paul Splittorff as a young kid having a very good Spring Training,” McKeon said. “And the director of player development, Charlie Metro, I saw him in Spring Training, and I said, ‘I’d like to have him [Splittorff], and Jerry Cram and Al Fitzmorris in Omaha – three young kids and they said, ‘Ah, you can’t have those guys. They’re too young. They’re not ready. You’ll ruin ‘em. They’re over their heads.’

“I kept pleading and pleading and finally they gave in and I remember Charlie Metro telling me, ‘Don’t you come complaining to me in about mid-May or June that these guys can’t cut it.’ I said, ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of ‘em.’ Well, the rest is history. Each one of them won anywhere from 10 to 13 games that year and we won the pennant by about six or seven games.”

Again, his memory is right on. The Omaha Royals won the pennant by six games over the Tulsa Oilers in 1969. Splittorff won 12 games that season; Cram won 10; and Fitzmorris won 10.

So, does McKeon ever think about those formative years at the beginning of the organization and the role he played in the success of the organization later in the decade?

“Oh yeah,” McKeon said. “The good thing about not only managing the Royals here in Omaha was the fact that I managed the instructional league team as well. And that gave me an advantage to teach my system – not only to the players in Omaha, but they knew it before they got to Omaha. So, when I became the manager in Kansas City, all these players that graduated up there with me, they knew how to play the game. And fortunately, we had some successful years in Kansas City.”

Even manager Jirschele surprised by playoff run

Jarrod Dyson in action.
(Photo: Eldon Lindsay/omahastormchasers.com)

Going into the game tonight against Fresno, the Omaha Royals were just 2.5 games out of first place in the PCL American North. And if you look at the number of impact players and starters who have been called up to Kansas City over the past few weeks – well, even manager Mike Jirschele is surprised.

“I mean, you just look back at the guys we’ve lost,” Jirschele said in an interview before the game with Royals radio broadcaster Mark Nasser, “We lost Gordon, we lost Ka’iahue, we lost Wilson Betemit – he’s hitting over .300 in the big leagues, Bullington, Humber and that’s just as of late.

“And you know, for these other guys to step in and do the job that they’ve done, you know, it’s more than we could have asked for and it’s more than I expected. I figured that after we started losing Bullington and Humber, I thought, ‘Oh man, we’re gonna go right down the tubes here.’

“I guess I should have more confidence and faith in our guys, but you know, you start losing all of the guys we’ve lost, you know, in years past we haven’t had guys who could step in and fill those positions, but thus far, everybody that we’ve gotten has stepped in and done a great job.”

One of the guys who has stepped up is 40-year-old relief pitcher Matt Herges. He told Jirschele he would be willing to step into the starting rotation after the Royals lost Bullington and Humber. Jirschele said he cleared it with the front office and then gave Herges the ball. In Sacramento last night, Herges gave up just one run on one hit over five innings.

Outfielder Jarrod Dyson, who missed a large portion of the season with a lat injury in his back and then suffered an ankle injury during his rehab, has stepped up too. Over his last 10 games, he’s hitting .325 (13-for-40) with 1 HR, 8 RBI, 7 R and 4 SB.

And third baseman Mike Moustakas appears to be making adjustments to Triple-A pitching. For the season he’s hitting .265, but over his last 10 games he’s hitting .292. He’s not really driving the ball though. Over that 10-game span, he has three doubles and no home runs.

Pitchers Tim Collins (0.75 ERA in 7 appearances), Louis Coleman (3-1, 2.39 ERA in 14 appearances) and Anthony Lerew (who recently rejoined the team and has a 2-0 record with a 2.49 ERA in August) have also played key roles in keeping the Omaha Royals in playoff contention.

Omaha returns home on Saturday to begin a new series against Memphis. The 13-game home stand will be the final one of the season and the final one ever at Rosenblatt Stadium.

Gil Meche opts for bullpen instead of surgery

Meche in action at Rosenblatt last week.
(Photo: Eldon Lindsay/oroyals.com)

The past week has been a whirlwind for Kansas City pitcher Gil Meche.

Last Monday, Meche made a rehab start in Omaha hoping it would be his last stop on his way back to the big leagues, where he hasn’t seen action since May 25 due to bursitis in his right shoulder. But things didn’t go well for Meche, who didn’t use his curve ball during the rehab start because throwing it causes him pain. New Orleans pounded him for 7 earned runs on 8 hits and 2 walks in four innings.

After that start, Meche planned to have season-ending surgery, but he changed his mind after learning he would miss the 2011 season (his final season under contract with Kansas City) and that the surgery may have even ended his career. Instead, he has asked to be moved to the bullpen, where his shoulder won’t have to endure as much.

He may not see major league action out of the pen until September.

“Our focus on him is to try to maybe rehab him back as a reliever and have him in a position where he’s available for us,” Kansas City manager Ned Yost is quoted as saying in the Kansas City Star. “I think that’s something the muscles in his shoulder can handle, 40 pitch stints.

“One-hundred-pitch stints, that’s pushing it a little bit. Forty-pitch stints, I think you could use him every other day and keep him healthy and part of our club and be a productive part of our club.”

Miller drives in four in Omaha rout of Tacoma

Anthony Lerew

Anthony Lerew re-discovered his groove on the mound and Jai Miller blasted his 18th home run of the season last night as the Omaha Royals trounced the Tacoma Rainiers 11-1.

Omaha has won seven of their last eight games and find themselves nine games over .500 for the first time since September 1, 2002. They are now 4.5 games out of first in the PCL American North.

Lerew has struggled since returning from Kansas City recently, but he had good command of his pitches last night and he threw strikes. His final line was impressive: 1 ER, 8 H, 1 BB, 6 K in 8.0 IP.

Miller’s recent numbers have been pretty good too. In his last six games, he has six home runs. In addition to hitting a 3-run dinger in the third inning (see the video below), he also drove in another run with a double. He’s hitting .361 over his last 10 games and he’s forced his way into the lineup at the expense of right fielder Jordan Parraz.

David Lough had two triples in the game (see the video below of his third inning three-bagger), becoming the first Omaha Royals player to do that since Kerry Robinson did it on August 17, 2006 against Albuquerque. Lough has been red hot in the month of August, hitting .500 (11-for-22).

Mike Moustakas wasn’t in the lineup because he fouled a ball of his foot two nights ago and he is day-to-day.

The series continues at Rosenblatt tonight at 7:05. Omaha is scheduled to send RHP Federico Castaneda (4-2, 3.86) to the mound vs. LHP Ryan Feierabend (3-4, 5.05 ERA) for Tacoma.

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Moustakas drives in winning run in the 12th

Mike Moustakas
(Photo: Eldon Lindsay/omahastormcasers.com)

The transition from Double-A pitching to Triple-A pitching has not been an easy one for Omaha Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas. Maybe his at bat in the bottom of the 12th inning last night at Rosenblatt Stadium will help him get over the hump. He drove a 2-2 pitch over Greg Halman’s head in center field to give the Royals a 4-3 walk-off win.

Moustakas has been struggling with breaking pitches – especially on the outside portion of the plate and beyond. He’s also been susceptible to the high fastball. After failing to get runners home from third with less than two outs on two occasions earlier in the game last night, he got another shot in the bottom of the 12th.

Tacoma relief pitcher Mumba Rivera started Moustakas off with an inside breaking pitch that Moose took for ball one.

On the second pitch, Rivera came at him with what appeared to be another breaking pitch that Moose fouled off.

Rivera came back with another inside breaking pitch that was off the plate, but Moose took a cut at it and fouled it off his foot for strike two.

Rivera, ahead in the count 1-2, tried to bust Moose inside with a fastball – something a number of other pitchers have been doing successfully against Moose once they set him up with something off-speed outside. Apparently Rivera was trying to change things up a bit by throwing Moose off-speed stuff on the inside portion of the plate before trying to bust him inside. But Moose laid off this one for ball two.

I couldn’t tell for sure what Rivera threw Moustakas on the next pitch, but it appeared to be something off-speed and it caught enough of the plate for Moose to drive it over Halman’s head for the walk-off win. You can see the entire sequence in the video below.

Omaha has now won six of its last seven games. They currently find themselves tied for second with Memphis in the PCL American North division, 5.5 games behind the red hot Iowa Cubs. The Cubs have won nine of their last ten games.

Game two of the Omaha-Tacoma series is set for tonight at 7:05 pm at Rosenblatt. Omaha will send RHP Anthony Lerew (5-3, 3.48) up against Tacoma RHP Blake Beavan (1-0, 3.00).

St. Joseph family takes in their first Royals game at Rosenblatt

The Parker Family

In seasons past, Jeff Parker and his wife Rebecca, didn’t have an real incentive to pile their three kids into their car and head up I-29 from St. Joseph, Missouri to Omaha to catch an Omaha Royals game. So they never did.

Over the past 15 years, the Royals organization hasn’t used Omaha as a proving ground for prospects, opting instead to use it as a graveyard where 30-something-year-old players’ careers come to die – a fact that Parker, who blogs about the Royals at Royally Speaking, is well aware of.

“I was just talking to my wife and she said, ‘How come we’ve never done this before?’” Parker said. “I said, ‘Well, coming to Omaha to watch guys who play in the minors their entire careers – it didn’t really interest me.’ Now it does and we’ll probably make this a yearly thing.”

Hardcore Royals fans have been interested in Mike Moustakas ever since he was selected in the first round of the 2007 draft. He tore up minor league pitching at Double-A NW Arkansas this season (.347 AVG, 21 HR, 76 RBI in 66 games) and that earned him a promotion to Omaha recently. But Moustakas isn’t the only exciting prospect Omaha has to offer. Jordan Parraz, David Lough, Jarrod Dyson, Lucas May, Federico Castaneda, Louis Coleman, Tim Collins and others are also giving fans of the organization something to cheer about.

Of course fans are hoping that the core group of players in Omaha and the lower levels of the organization will be reminiscent of the prospects that game up together through that same system in the mid-70s and early 80s that eventually lead to winning baseball in Kansas City.

Parker grew up watching Kansas City play during their glory days. He became a fan while watching Royals games with his father during the mid-70s. Early on, Parker was drawn to a shortstop named Freddie Patek.

“I was really small as a kid, so watching him – here he is playing at an All-Star level – I just related. When I played little league, I played shortstop and so I just kind of related to him.”

Last night, it was Parker’s turn to watch some baseball with his own kids – Ari, 14, Jeff, 11, and Zak, 8. And it was a good night to bring kids to the ballpark because it was Star Wars night in addition to being Fireworks Friday.

Unfortunately, the Royals ended up being blown out by the Portland Beavers, 13-6. But, blowouts happen.

Today, the Parkers plan to spend some time at the zoo before heading back to St. Joseph. Next season, they will have even more to look forward when they make their annual visit because they’ll have a chance to see the team play in the new ballpark in Sarpy County.

*****

A few notes about the game last night:

Relief pitcher Tim Collins, who the Royals recently acquired in a trade with Atlanta, was outstanding in his Rosenblatt Stadium debut, tossing two innings, giving up just one hit and no runs. He has a unique delivery style – one that Minda Haas aptly described as a “half-tornado delivery” and an explosive curve ball. You can view him in action in one of the videos below against Portland slugger Wily Mo Pena.

The game got so out of hand last night that Omaha manager Mike Jirschele brought in first basemen/designated hitter Scott Thorman to pitch the ninth inning. This was Thorman’s second appearance on the mound this season. He fared much better this time. Using his knuckeball, he struck out Portland shortstop Sean Kazmar and he got Pena to ground into a double play (see the video of that play as well).