If there's one person in the Royals' clubhouse who maybe hasn't enjoyed the team's fast start quite as much as everyone else, there's a good chance it's Brad Keller. Keller, who was impressive in last year's shortened season (5-3, 2.47 ERA), has struggled through the first six weeks of this year's campaign, posting an 8.06 ERA with a 2.14 WHIP through 22.1 innings pitched. It's a trend that's going to need to reverse if the Royals expect to keep up with the AL Central all summer, and on Wednesday morning's weekly radio appearance with Fescoe In The Morning, manager Mike Matheny detailed the ... unique ... way that he's approaching Keller's slump.
"I was able to catch his bullpen yesterday, and I still hurt right now," Matheny said. "I physically caught it. It's just because he's so fun to catch -- his stuff is so good. His stuff is right. It's just another reminder - like, 'Hey man, just do that. Just do that. What you're doing, just do that.' Guess what, we're going to help you. Our guys are going to make plays. They're going to. Just stay the course."
"I knew I wanted to watch him, and the best seat in the house is behind the plate. I don't do it as much as I used because it seems to hurt a little more, getting up and down. But he's got unique stuff. I haven't caught many guys with his kind of heavy-ball life running to both sides of the plate. And his slider was beating me up pretty good yesterday. It was sharp. So if I want to talk with him about his stuff, I want to get a real good look. So I'll keep doing that as long as I can, until I start losing teeth or something."
Matheny said the reason for putting the gear on again was to show his players that the coaching staff is fully invested in them, and not just, as he put it, "some cursory come-by where you say, 'Hey, that looked good,' and you pat them on the butt and let them walk."
You can listen to Matheny's entire interview -- where they touch on the game's pace of play issues and the weird umpiring issues from the previous night -- in the embedded player below: