Defense? Where?

Rather than focus on another bullpen implosion, I am going to focus on the defense. The general consensus is that the best defensive second baseman on the Royals is Willie Bloomquist. In the eighth inning of the final game against divisional foes, the Cleveland Indians, Alberto Callaspo, he of limited range and dubious glove, was sitting in the game to help protect a one-run lead with Gil Meche on the mound. I don't have a problem with letting Meche come in and try to get through the eighth, but why not equip him with the tools he could need to win.

Yes, Alberto Callaspo is one of the hottest bats on the Royals. I get why his bat should be in the lineup.

The problem here is that in the past week, while his bat has been hot, he has misplayed at least three fairly routine grounders in the past week all of which have occurred at vital times in the game, two of which arguably kept the opposition in the game to burn the Royals for a come-from-behind win.

Maybe Callaspo had come up too far on the grounder he fielded in the eighth yesterday to be able to turn two, but with one out and runners on the corners, Callaspo was unable to get a grounder into his glove that could quite possibly have gotten the Royals out of the inning with a lead. Remember, it was the slow Travis Hafner on first, and Asdrubal Cabrera is surprisingly slow for a middle infielder, so a double play is on the table.

Yet, for the second time this week, Alberto Callaspo found himself manning second base in the late innings, where he proceeded to blow a playable groundball that ultimately cost the Royals the game.

At this point, Willie Bloomquist has played second in exactly one game. He was sitting on the bench last night (Maier finally got the start in right), available to come in as a defensive replacement in the eighth with a lead. Granted, Callaspo was fourth in the order in the ninth, but after a relatively brutal week with the leather (that web gem no-look flip hardly outshines the otherwise abysmal week at second) wouldn't you rather take the chance with the best second baseman on the team stepping onto the field? No one even needs to be shifted (something Trey Hillman may not even be aware is a managerial option in Major League Baseball). Moreover, while Bloomquist may not be great with the bat, he's not TPJ '08 (or Mike Aviles '09) bad. You have these players on your team to be able to align yourself best defensively. Is it going to take Jose Guillen's return to get you to play Bloomquist at second? If that's the case, what is stopping you from doing that now? You've had Mitch Maier, who was tearing it up at Triple-A, cooling off on your bench for a week now, while you could have had a versatile piece on your bench (who is much more valuable to the team in one of those super-utility ways where he can come in for five different guys in the late innings if he has to) coming in to do what you had Mitch Maier and his eight at-bats in six games doing. Trey, you have defensive replacements to be defensive replacements.

And while I'm harping on defense, both John Buck and Miguel Olivo have been brutal so far. I'm roughly recalling four runs scoring on passed balls/wild pitches. Another scored yesterday on John Buck's throwing error trying to catch the runner at third. When baserunners are stealing third on you, there might be a problem, John. We do have a third catcher on the roster. Would it be wrong to see if maybe he can't do better defensively? I know you want him to pinch-hit in the eighth only to leave him on the bench afterwards despite his versatility that is said to be so valuable, but with the defense of Olivo and Buck costing the Royals a run or two a series (if not more) it can't hurt to see what Brayan can do. It's hard to imagine someone being worse than these two have been so far.