March 16, 2006
Catching the Ball
The Royals understand their defense was horrible last year and are trying to take steps to correct that:
And so on. Defense is the theme here at spring training. And defense cuts to the baseball heart for Buddy Bell. He was a great defensive third baseman, a six-time Gold Glove winner. He knows the Royals need their own identity. They’re not fast or particularly strong. They will not win games by outslugging teams or by blowing them away with nine innings of overpowering fastballs.
So he wants the identity to be a team that will play great defense. He thinks that gets the Royals going back to where they need to go. And I agree with him.
“I’m not really into errors and all that stuff,” he says. “For me, it’s about range. Take away hits. Make the good plays. Turn the big double play. We’re going to have to do that this year. I think defense is unbelievably important for us, more than it is for a lot of other teams. I think we will be a lot better.
“And I’ll be honest with you: It won’t be enough for us just to make the routine plays. I mean, obviously, it starts there. We have to go beyond our limits every once in a while. We need to make the great plays to get out of tough situations. I don’t know if we can do that. But we have to. It’s that simple, really.”
I wonder how much the defense affected Zack Greinke? Maybe all those balls that should be outs just drove him over the edge. A better defensive team might bring him back.
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Posted by David Pinto at
08:43 AM
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Defense
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