Kuzul

When the Kansas City Royals selected Luke Hochevar with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2006 First-Year Player Draft, they picked him ahead of standout prospects like Evan Longoria, Tim Lincecum, Clayton Kershaw, Brandon Morrow and Drew Stubbs.They clearly knew what they were doing. After all, Hochevar has been one of the best pitchers in the major leagues......In his last two starts.Back on June 19, Hochevar spun 7.2 shutout innings against the Houston Astros to earn his fourth win of the season. That was good, but his start on Monday against the Tampa Bay Rays was even better.Hochevar threw the second complete-game shutout of his career, blanking the Rays on seven hits and a walk while striking out eight in a game the Royals won 8-0. Per Baseball-Reference.com, he earned a game score of 80, a personal best for the season.You can catch highlights of Hochevar's dominance over at ...

On Monday, it was a trip to Kansas City’s spring training facility to see the Royals and San Francisco. Outside of the Chicago Cubs, the Giants are the biggest draw in the Cactus League and easily had more than half the fans of the 6,243 in attendance. To the delight of much of the crowd, San Francisco won 2-1, as both teams used a mix of regulars and subs for about six innings, before the younger guys with numbers of 60 or higher took over. Last season, the Giants were last in the National League in scoring and 29th in baseball, with a large part of their problem being they swung (and often missed) at more pitches that were out of the strike zone than any other team in the major league. The return of Buster Posey will help, although you don’t go from being the lowest scoring team in your league ...

Losing. It's what has been expected of the Kansas City Royals. But Ned Yost wants his players to make mistakes in spring training and learn from them.    The Royals have not had a winning season since 2003, when they finished 83-79, good enough for third place in the AL Central Division.Since then, the Royals have fallen short of .500 every year.  It took a Cy Young Award winning performance from Zack Greinke in 2008 to get the Royals the closest to .500 they have been in seven years and even then, they finished 75-87 to put them in fourth place in the division. Almost two weeks into spring training, the Kansas City Royals are 7-3, second in the Cactus League and first among all AL teams. This team of young talent has been playing hard, fierce and with a winning mindset. Ned Yost wants them to playing aggressive and wants them ...