Heath Phillips (courtesy oroyals.com)
The Omaha Royals have got to be looking forward to the month of May being over. After starting the season with a respectable 12-8 record in April, May has been an absolute disaster. Monday night’s win was the team’s eighth victory this month, against 16 losses.
The Royals have had many culprits for their struggles, and their slide can unfortunately truly be called a team effort. At the beginning of this skid, the starting pitching was hard pressed to record an outing lasting longer than 5 innings. Now the rotation seems to be finding its footing and the bullpen has stumbled mightily. Since returning to Omaha, the Royals’ rotation has posted a minute 1.25 ERA. That’s a span of five games, and 36 and a third innings pitched. Only one starter has failed to go past the sixth inning, and only one starter has allowed more than one earned run.
On the other side is a bullpen that has posted a 10.12 ERA over the same span, and has been tagged with losses in every game they’ve appeared in. The one win over the five game slide was due in large part to a complete game victory by Heath Phillips Monday night.
The bullpen is not the only culprit in the struggles at home. An offense that had scored less than five runs in a game only once in their previous eight games coming into the home stand has yet to score five runs in a game since coming back to Rosenblatt.
Kila Ka’aihue, who was red hot on the road trip, has gone ice cold in Omaha, hitting just .211 thanks to a 4 for 19 showing at the plate. Kila did go 2 for 3, and hit his eighth home run of the season in the final game against Sacramento so there is hope that the heart of Omaha’s offense is coming back into form.
With Kila scuffling, the rest of the team has struggled to find its groove. Over the last five games the O-Royals have left 35 runners on base and hit and abominable .129 with runners in scoring position.
In the bullpen, Carlos Rosa’s strong start to the season has been obliterated by his sudden inability to find the strike zone, or record a 1-2-3 inning. In May, Rosa has posted an 0-3 record, with a 12.16 ERA. Nine of the 12 walks he’s issued have come over the 11.1 innings pitched this month, and 17 of the 27 hits he’s allowed have come this month.
Likewise, Josh Newman has struggled mightily since the calendar turned away from April. 18 of his 23 hits allowed have come this month, and Newman’s worst stretch of the season, has come in the last two games. Over his last 1.1 innings, Newman has surrendered eight hits, two walks, and six earned runs. That’s good for a WHIP of 9.09 and an ERA of 49.09 over his last two appearances.
Both Rosa and Newman had a hand in the biggest bullpen meltdown in recent memory, when Omaha went to the eighth inning with a 4-3 lead, and subsequently surrendered nine runs, in the final two innings, to lose 12-4. Rosa went 1.2 innings, and gave up six runs (four earned), while Newman lasted just a third of an inning, and gave up three earned runs.
This is why it was no surprise that when Heath Phillips had worked an economical eight innings Monday night that he was sent out there to pitch the ninth, with just a three run lead. Phillips made short work of Fresno, striking out the leadoff batter, and then forced a double play after giving up a one out single.
Omaha (20-24) has three more games with Fresno (23-21) before embarking on a three day, four game road trip against the Nashville Sounds, which includes a double header on May 30th.
The Royals will then return home for eight games, including yet another double header against the Sounds, before beginning a 15 game road trip, made necessary by the College World Series taking place at Rosenblatt. Omaha needs to build on the complete game shutout and seize some momentum before their annual super road trip begins in order to continue to stay in contention for the PCL American North title.
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