| REGISTER TO WIN | |
 |
ARLINGTON, Texas | The Royals had the entire flight Thursday evening to Cleveland to ponder what, exactly, was the worst part of Thursday’s 2-1 loss the Texas Rangers.
There was simply losing to the Rangers, of course. Texas entered the day with baseball’s worst record and in crisis mode with rumors continuing to circulate that manager Ron Washington is about to be fired.
There was losing the three-game series to those same Rangers despite winning the opener behind an ineffective Brett Tomko. The Royals started their two best pitchers in the final two games, Brian Bannister and Zack Greinke, and still lost.
There was the waste of a dominant outing by Greinke, who yielded just two runs and four hits while striking out nine and walking none in seven innings. The two runs came on homers by Ian Kinsler and Ramon Vazquez.
There was all that and — and! — allowing retread right-hander Sidney Ponson to display, for a day anyway, all of the marvelous potential he once possessed.
“He pitched a great game,” designated hitter José Guillen said. “That’s all I can say.”
That says it all, really.
Ponson, 1-0, baffled the Royals by yielding just one run and six hits in eight innings before C.J. Wilson worked a scoreless ninth for his sixth save in seven opportunities.
“I’m just happy Texas gave me a chance to pitch back in the big leagues,” Ponson said, “and I’m going to get the most out of it.”
Ponson, now 31, was once viewed as one of the game’s better arms. He won 17 games in 2003 for the Orioles and Giants before his career went into a steady decline and his weight ballooned. He made just seven starts last year for Minnesota before getting his unconditional release.
“Mentally and physically,” Ponson recalled, “I wasn’t there. I told my agent, I’m going to go home, chill and relax, and get everything out of my mind.”
That was it until a slimmed-down Ponson auditioned for several teams, including the Royals, in early March. The Rangers took a chance, signed him to a minor-league deal and sent him to Class AAA Oklahoma.
Injuries in the rotation prompted the Rangers to buy his contract on April 26.
Ponson had a solid debut last Saturday for the Rangers when he limited the Twins to one earned run in 5 1/3 innings. But he also committed a throwing error that contributed to three unearned runs in what snowballed into a 12-6 loss.
Now this.
“Ponson looked great,” Greinke said. “His sinker was really moving. The wind was blowing straight out, and that helped his sinker and my curveball.”
Greinke, 3-1, got off to a rough start when Kinsler led off the first inning with a line-drive homer into the left-field seats. Vazquez followed with a single, but Greinke retired the next 12 hitters.
The Royals pulled even in the third on Mark Grudzielanek’s two-out RBI single. David DeJesus followed with a single, but Ponson escaped further damage when Guillen grounded into a force-out.
DeJesus also had a two-out single in the sixth but got caught napping on a pickoff from Ponson for an easy out. Alex Gordon killed two budding threats with double-play grounders.
Really, the Royals mounted little against Ponson.
That meant the Rangers could regain the lead at 2-1 on another homer, Vazquez’s line-hugging fly to right on a first-pitch fastball, with one out in the sixth.
“I just wanted to get ahead,” Greinke said. “He just jumped on it instead of taking it and hit it good. I want to throw first-pitch strikes. So that’s going to happen every now and then.”
The Royals never got a runner past first after the third inning.
“We can be better,” manager Trey Hillman said. “No doubt. We have to be better than that offensively because we’re going to have well-pitched ballgames against us. But (Ponson) was pretty good, and we weren’t good enough.”
Join the discussion
Share your observations and experiences about news. Lively, open debate is the goal, but please refrain from personal attacks or comments that are racist, vulgar or otherwise inappropriate. If you see an inappropriate comment, please click the "Report as violation" link to notify a KansasCity.com editor. Thanks for your feedback.