The Royals didn't bang him all over the ballpark yesterday. They didn't have to. He walked five men (one intentionally and one semi-intentionally after falling behind in the count) during 5 2/3 innings of work, and it was worse than that. Walking Mike Sweeney is one thing. Walking Desi Relaford and David DeJesus is another, especially when you do it in succession, and with two men out.
"Walking the eight and nine hitter back-to-back never normally leads to success," Lowe reasoned. "All in all, it wasn't a very well-pitched game."
Those bottom two men in the Royals' order were absolute killers, and not just for Lowe. Relaford walked twice and singled and scored all three times he reached base; DeJesus walked once and reached on a fielder's choice and scored twice. I would rather doubt the need to call our friends at the Elias Sports Bureau to inquire just how many times in the course of a season a team that gets five runs scored from the 8 and 9 spots in the order loses a game. I'd wager it's slightly less than the number of times Eric Gagne blows a save.
Lowe's capacity for self-flagellation was practically limitless. "Yeah," he declared, "I just felt like I shot myself in the foot, more than anything, with the amount of walks. That was just a poorly-pitched game by me."
Time, perhaps, to give some credit to the Other Guys. The Royals appeared to be pretty discerning up there.
"I mean, I don't think they swung at any balls that weren't strikes," Lowe said. "I kept hearing that from their dugout the whole game; `Make him get it up.' It's good strategy to have."
"We talked about being patient," said Matt Stairs. "We haven't been doing it for the past 15 or 16 games, but we did it today."
"We did have a game plan," confirmed Sweeney, who was 2 for 2 with three intentional walks. "We wanted to be selective and make him get the ball up."
