This team has no mental toughness. This team farts away opportunities. And the Royals strategy of playing baseball like its 1967 just baffles me everyday.
Bunting twice (TWICE) to move a runner who is fast enough to score on a single, is an inexcusable strategy when the batter has been slapping singles like crazy.
Playing Josh Willingham over Cain or Butler, is inexcusable.
Pinch hitting Ibanez when he's 1-11 (now 1-12) against Nathan in his career, and has not had a hit since August 27th, in the last AB of the game, is inexcusable.
When your All-Star catcher and team leader does not tag up, and costs us a run, that is a mental failure that ultimately reflects on the coaches. It is inexcusable.
The Tigers are better. Better rotation, better lineup, better front office, better manager. They deserve the division and the win today. Even so, their awful bullpen and below average D gave us the game, and we refused to take it. To those that defend Ned because its the first playoff chase in a generation, please reconsider. 3 scoring opportunities thwarted with bunts and Ibanez. I doubt many of you accept the "Yeah well we were 0-10 in the 80s, so just be thankful for what we have" argument when you are displeased with KSU football, and Royals fans should not have to accept an in game strategy that lessons the chance of winning because we sucked from 1995-2012. The slumps of Gordon/Salvy/Billy/everyone not from Japan of course would fix this poor play, and we should hold them most accountable. However, in a game that is tight like this one, one wrong move costs you, and today was another with several that anyone could see (not just in hindsight) would've increased our chances at a W. I'm sick of this crap.
