This is how he’s gone from a walk-on infielder at Southern California to now, one of the hottest pitchers in the American League. The man can spot trends — especially within himself.
And he sees one after his second career complete game gave the Royals a 5-1 victory over the Twins on Sunday at Kauffman Stadium.
“I’ll tell everybody right now,” he said. “I’m a streaky pitcher. I always have been.”
The one he’s currently riding — 3-0 with a 0.86 ERA in three starts — squashed a three-game losing string the Royals carried into the homestand finale.
The Royals also snapped streaks of 26 scoreless innings and 37 at-bats without an extra-base hit on Sunday, but as manager Trey Hillman said, this “was really all about Brian Bannister.”
He gave up just one unearned run, three hits, one walk, one hit batter and had three strikeouts. The run came in the first after José Guillen dropped Brendan Harris’ fly ball in right field. Harris scored on Justin Morneau’s single, and after that, Bannister retired 23 of 26 and faced just two more than the minimum.
It was a welcome sight for the Royals, stopping the losing streak in just 2 hours, 10 minutes on another cold day that had a 29-degree wind chill at first pitch. Hillman said he hopes that none of his pitchers develop a reputation as a stopper because he doesn’t want too many losing streaks that need stopping.
But for now, he’ll certainly take another dominating performance from Bannister.
“He didn’t give us much of a chance today,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. “He had his great stuff. He just locates the ball so well, in and out. He’s got a great changeup. He’s got a nice little breaking ball, he just locates the ball. Very deceptive.”
Billy Butler’s RBI single in the first extended a personal 12-game hitting streak and, more importantly, stopped the Royals’ scoreless string.
Miguel Olivo’s RBI double in the second was the Royals’ first extra-base hit since Friday and put them up for good.
“What scoreless drought?” joked Alex Gordon. “Oh, I didn’t know we had one.”
The Royals took advantage of some spotty control by Twins pitcher Francisco Liriano, who was pitching for the first time since 2006 following Tommy John surgery. Liriano’s fastball was mostly 91 mph, occasionally 93 — down about 5 mph since before the surgery — and he struggled with command.
They chased Liriano in the fifth. Gordon led off with a double, stole third and scored on a sacrifice fly by Tony Peña. John Buck was hit by a pitch, went to second on Joey Gathright’s single and scored on a hit by Esteban German.
Liriano gave up six hits, four runs, five walks and four strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings.
“I know his velocity’s down a lot,” said Mark Teahen, who went zero for four. “I saw his slider pretty good today. Obviously I didn’t produce, but it was easier to pick up the slider. He’s still throwing 91, can still be a really productive pitcher, but definitely not the flash that was there in ’06.”
While Liriano struggled, it was vintage Bannister, who had an average of 3.6 pitches per plate appearance. He threw first-pitch strikes to 18 of 31 batters he faced, and even on the other 13 seemed to get ahead in the count quickly. Only four Twins ended their at-bats in hitters’ counts.
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