In case you missed it, the Royals violated one of the unwritten rules of baseball yesterday. It came in conjunction with Cleveland violating a whole bunch of Vin Mazzaro's pitches. Mazzaro pitched 2 1/3 innings in relief for the Royals. In the course of recording those seven precious outs, he allowed -- and was allowed to allow -- 14 earned runs. Yes, you read that correctly. Stats LLC has been tracking these things for almost 100 years and says no pitcher has ever given up that many runs in so few innings since they started keeping tabs in 1919.
So there are two questions, and they are the same question: How does this happen?
*The nuts and bolts of it are right here: Starter Kyle Davies walked three batters in the first inning and was lifted. Reliever Nate Adcock pitched into the third inning, but after he walked the leadoff batter in that frame, Mazzaro was summoned. So the Royals were already on their third pitcher by the third inning, and they already trailed 3-0 to a team on a pretty good roll. Mazzaro actually recorded three outs in the third without allowing any runs. But then in the fourth ... he gave up eight hits and 10 runs on the way to recording three outs. Nine of the runs were scored with two outs, which could be what Mazzaro was alluding to when he uttered this quote, which we had to laugh at: "Some of the plays didn't go my way." You think?
Remarkably, Royals manager Ned Yost hadn't seen enough. KC trotted Mazzaro back out for the fifth inning, where he was tagged for four more runs (three of them charged to Mazzaro after he had been lifted with the bases loaded).
*But really, how does this happen? That's what we don't really know. You simply don't leave a pitcher out there to take that kind of pounding -- even one like Mazzaro, who was immediately sent to Class AAA Omaha after the game. It's unfair to the pitcher, and it's an embarrassment to the team.
