Royals’ manager Trey Hillman thought Gil Meche spotted his fastball better and worked both sides of the plate, but the results just weren’t there as the Dodgers beat the Royals in spring action in Arizona.
Meche gave up four runs while allowing seven runs and a walk in two-plus innings. Meche says his arm angles for each pitch are off and even though he’s not feeling any back or elbow pain, he just needs to continue working in his bullpen sessions to get his fastball down. Closer Joakim Soria made his Cactus debut and breezed through a perfect inning with one strikeout and was only scheduled to throw one inning. Hillman thinks not preparing for the World Baseball Classic has helped Soria progress into this season after last year was cut short from a tired arm.
At the plate, Willie Bloomquist, in his first at-bat, came through with an RBI double to left-center. Scott Podsednik followed with a two-run homer to right field and went 2-for-3. Mitch Maier singled home a run and is now 4-for-10 with four RBIs this spring.
Hillman and Meche on his performance.