Makes his Pro debut Today for the Rafters in Arizona :)

Only Royal in the lineup today is Moustakes.

Wish 'em luck.

4 innings, 3 hits, 2 runs, 1 walk and 2 Ks.

Not bad, but not great.

How much has Crow actually pitched since leaving the campus in Columbia?

And why do I think I have seen this movie before? Luke Hochevar? Jeff Austin?

Here's hoping he works out better than that.

By the time he makes it to the Royals I hope we have alot better defense.

Come on Cow...Luke isn't done yet....I hope.

Maybe it's a bit too early to write him off, but it doesn't look good. His major league record is 13-26, and his ERA is near 6.00. He simply showed no signs of improvement or ability to learn this year. In fact, this year, he gave up nearly twice as many home runs as last year in just 14 more innings pitched.

Of course, the word is that hitters have all caught on that he is tipping his pitches. But sometimes, that's not easy to correct.

At least Hochevar show flashes of really figuring things out. He had several games this year where he looked fairly dominant. Of course that doesn't mean that he will completely figure it out - and really only makes his season ERA of 6.55 that much more annoying.

All we can do is hope, and the pitch tipping thing might give some small reason to do so. If there is a fixable problem in play, maybe that's all he needs to do to turn himself around...

On the other hand, the pitch tipping thing kind of drives me nuts. The way I heard it, several teams were on to him (Mellinger reported at the time something along the lines of "at least six teams"), and it had been going on for quite a while. How can the Royals' be the team that hasn't noticed? I know that people around here are always calling for a coaching change as some sort of quick fix, and I don't want to be lumped in with that crowd... but failure to catch something like that is a serious coaching failure.

Hoch does look good at times. I am not sure if it is encouraging that at times he looks really good or discouraging that he can't seem to be there consistently.

I think his problem is between those huge ears of his.

After a 1.50 ERA in 48 innings in AAA he should be better then a 6.55 in 143 innings in the bigs.

Sure there is a big differece from AAA to the majors but there should not be that much of a gap in the numbers. Not from a guy that is 26 years old and was picked in the first round twice.

If 2010 is like 2009 his odds of making it seem very slim.

We don't know that the Royals were the last team to notice. They could have very well been the first, for all we know.

Some guys are more coachable than others, and some problems are more easily corrected than others.

But mark my words (just slightly off topic). Every winter/spring we get stories about some hitter or pitcher for whom a "tiny flaw" has been detected and corrected, and the guy is now poised for greatness.

Makes for nice, hopeful reading before games get played that count, but they almost always don't amount to a hill of beans.

Gotta love the optimism that it can create, right before ya wake-up and realize it was all a dream....:)

Of course it much easier to say someone is more likey to fail than be optimistic someone will succeed.

You end up being right more, but you also end up being a miserable, old curmudgeon.

"We don't know that the Royals were the last team to notice."

That's true, and we do have to take the public statements of players and managers with a grain of salt (especially when it comes to our manager, apparently), but... Luke did give an interview shortly after this story went public in which he basically said that he had no idea this was going on. I think Olivo made similar comments at one point, too.

And then, Hillman also said, in the postgame following Hoch's last shellacking in the MetroDome, something along the lines of "yeah, they seemed to know what he was throwing, and there was no one on second at the time." (Not an exact quote, but something like that). So, either they didn't know until recently or they're pretending they didn't know until recently...

BTW, regarding your "off topic" comment: I fully expect to hear stories next Spring about how the coaching staff has heroically discovered the "tell" in Hoch's delivery and corrected it.

If and when that happens, I'll REALLY be wondering why it took the better part of two years to address the problem.

Well there can only be one answer then --- Bob McClure is a complete nincompoop who can't even pick up that a kid pitcher the team has invested millions in is tipping his pitches until everybody else in baseball knows it. And he's got no idea how to deal with it.

Or --- McClure knew about it a long time ago, and only recently has been able to convince Hochevar that it's a problem.

Or --- McClure and Hochevar both knew about it a long time ago, but it's not an easy habit to break.

I just don't buy the theory that everybody else but the Royals have known this for two years. There are lots of guys who've been around baseball for quite some time. You think George Brett couldn't pick this up? Or Frank White? Or Paul Splittorff? Or Jamie Quirk? Or Kevin Seitzer?

How about veteran Royals' pitchers and hitters? You think a guy like Teahen can tell when a guy is tipping? Or a guy like Meche? Even if the Royals were that inexplicably blind and stupid. how about players who come in from other organizations? Wouldn't Willie Bloomquist say anything? Or Coco Crisp?

All good points. And, I think it's pretty darn amazing that something like that could go unnoticed within the organization... if indeed that's what happened. Actually, that was sort of my point. How on Earth could a pitcher tipping go unnoticed for two years by his own organization?

Kind of hard to believe, isn't it?

So, maybe they're lying when they say that they just figured it out.

Like I said, you take the public statements of players and managers with a grain of salt.

Well, I can assure you that a lot of guys need to lose their jobs if Hochevar has been tipping for two years and the problem was finally noticed just before Mellinger wrote about it in September. And I can't even begin to believe absolutely no one in the organization knew about a problem that was widely known throughout the American League until someone finally told them.

Also note that Hochevar was pretty much the same ol' Luke AFTER that revelation. Either he was still tipping, or his problems run much deeper than that.

Guy Hansen cured me of believing the "easy fix" stories a long time ago. Remember when he tried to "fix" Greinke by having him stand six inches over on the rubber? And remember how he fixed a release point issue with Chris George over the winter of '02-03?

In the words of Elwood Blues, I wouldn't call it lying as much as BS. It's a nice story to tell fans, and there may be some truth to it.

But from where I sit in the cheap seats, Hochevar's problems have much more to do with becoming discombobulated when he gets in a jam, and with leaving sinkers that don't sink down the heart of the plate the second time through the batting order.

>> Also note that Hochevar was pretty much the same ol' Luke AFTER that revelation. Either he was still tipping, or his problems run much deeper than that. <<

My guess is that McClure and Hoch new about his tipping last season. The only reason why this story still has legs is because Luke still pitched like he was tipping pitches in 09. AND... let's face it ... in KC it's entirely believable that he's been showing his hand for 2 years and nobody in a R's uniform could figure it out.

Luke beat himself with bad pitches in 09. Tipped or not, pitches left up in the zone get hit, and they get hit hard.

"in KC it's entirely believable that he's been showing his hand for 2 years and nobody in a R's uniform could figure it out."

Not really. Like all major league teams, the Royals have extensive video on everybody that the coaching staff pores over, particularly when things aren't going well. They will look for anything the guy is doing, and I guarantee you that tipping pitches is high on the list.