Dwayne Bowe, getting carved up by the Rams, and Jeremy Guthrie
The Kansas City Star
OK, I’m back among the full-time working, ramping up from last week’s hazy rest and trying to work ahead on a few things to good-ol-fashioned work again, and of course by “work” I mean, “type words about sports^.”
^ Not that you should necessarily care, but the general idea is I’m working on a lot of football section and SEC project type stuff this week, the Chiefs game on Friday, then some Royals and more football (going to Green Bay) next week, and hopefully get enough time in there somewhere to move.
Anyway, there’s a lot to catch up on so let’s do it in bites. Two Chiefs, one Royals.
I mostly agree with Babb here about Dwayne Bowe signing the franchise tender. I don’t think any right-minded soul was really worried about Bowe missing games, and he handled his holdout brilliantly: his only comments were that he’d be ready and in shape, he held out long enough to “miss” St. Joe and prove his point, but not so long that he put himself or the team at a disadvantage.
Really, it was flawless. And one more (very small) brick in Bowe showing that his D-Bowe Show knucklehead days are behind him. This essentially puts him into another contract year, which means the Chiefs win in that way, but if Bowe puts together a third consecutive productive season with no real headaches, that big contract will be harder to deny.
Yes, the Chiefs looked pretty awful in St. Louis, especially Romeo Crennel’s defense, and as long as we can all put it into proper second-game-of-the-preseason perspective, sure, there’s reason for concern. Most concerning to me was the front seven, unable to bet much push, either on Bradford on passing plays or pushing the Rams’ O-Line (so great it includes Barry Richardson) back on running plays.
But I think we’re all smart enough to know what this all means, which, specifically, isn’t much. If there’s much to take from the preseason, it’ll be this week against the Seahawks and then we’ll see how much the starters play next week in Green Bay.
I’m sticking with 10-6.
Well, Jeremy Guthrie has earned our attention.
Here’s the complete list of starting pitchers who’ve gone at least seven innings with no earned runs in three or more consecutive starts this season: R.A. Dickey, Ryan Dempster, and Jeremy Guthrie.
Here are the guys who did it last year: Cliff Lee (twice), Clayton Kershaw, and CC Sabathia.
Point is, guys who aren’t good pitchers don’t usually do things like this. You can find some. Jason Hammel did it in 2010. Zach Duke did it as a rookie in 2005. Others have done it during their peaks, then fallen off, like Ubaldo Jimenez. But it’s mostly a star-studded list: Oswalt, Santana, Halladay, Cain.
Now, just like the Chiefs’ turd in St. Louis, it’s important to keep perspective. Guthrie is still going to turn 34 in April. He still doesn’t strike out many batters. He still had a 6.35 ERA in for the Rockies this year, and it’s still been four years since you would’ve considered him an above-average starting pitcher.
But, at the risk of watching a sort of Kyle-Davies-in-Sept-2008 redux, there is a growing possibility that what we’re seeing is real. At the very least, it’s enough to feel good about seeing him in Kansas City next year — so long as he’s not the Opening Day or No. 2 starter.
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