KC takes on the New York Yankees in the newly renovated Kauffman Stadium tonight with Sidney Ponson making his Royals debut. Ryan Tandy offers up a series preview here.
Except for one brief, ugly inning by Kyle Farnsworth the Royals pitching dominated the White Sox – Farnsworth 1 IP 3 ER, everyone else 25 IP 2 ER. He didn’t make anymore appearances in the series so let’s hope Trey learned his lesson. Offensively the Royals struggled as they scored only six runs total, they will need to step that up against the Yankees.
The Yankees bats seem to bopping right now and that probably won’t change against the Royals as Ponson and Horacio Ramirez start the first two games. It’s going to be wet and cold so that may keep the runs down a bit.
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I asked Journal News beat writer Peter Abraham for a few Yankee thoughts and here are his answers.
1. How excited are you that the Yankees will get to face Sidney Ponson and Horacio Ramirez in the three game series?
Not remotely.
2. I’ve seen 2009 predictions for New York that range from the World Series to the 3rd place in the AL East. Where do you think they’ll finish?
I think they’ll win the division and get back in the series. They have a lot of pitching and five excellent starters.
3. The Yankees aren’t the youngest team in baseball so are there any prospects that will come up and make a splash this year?
Brett Gardner will start in CF. Phil Hughes will help I think. They have a SS named Ramiro Pena who is a whiz in the field. There are some players coming through the system.
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I sort of get the feeling Royals fans are more down on Ponson than they should be. I asked Mark Feinsand the same questions at Royally Speaking and he went into more detail with question #1 than Peter and it makes me think that the writers that covered Ponson in NY have a little more respect for him than we do here in KC. Sam Mellinger also weighs in with his Ponson thoughts and maybe (just maybe) it’s not the end of the world.
Topics: Kansas City Royals, Mark Feinsand, New York Yankees, Peter Abraham, Sam Mellinger, Sidney Ponson
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