{"id":59,"date":"2016-08-14T23:21:51","date_gmt":"2016-08-14T23:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=59"},"modified":"2017-10-25T13:48:48","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T17:48:48","slug":"the-emergence-of-matt-strahm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2016\/08\/14\/the-emergence-of-matt-strahm\/","title":{"rendered":"The Emergence of Matt Strahm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <strong>Kansas City Royals<\/strong> bullpen was once the cornerstone of a team that made back-to-back <strong>World Series<\/strong>appearances, winning it all in 2015. Unfortunately, that lights out dominance just hasn\u2019t carried over into the summer of the 2016 season. In Tuesday night\u2019s loss to the <strong>Chicago White Sox<\/strong>, reliever <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/herreke01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kelvin Herrera<\/a><\/strong> surrendered a three-run home run to <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/frazito01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Todd Frazier<\/a><\/strong> in the 10th inning and the Royals wound up losing; a recurring theme this season that Royals\u2019 fans are far from used to.<\/p>\n<h2>The Emergence of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/strahma01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matt Strahm<\/a><\/h2>\n<h3><em>The Bullpen Needs a Hero<\/em><\/h3>\n<p>Although the bullpen has been a complete let down this season, one man has begun to emerge as a beacon of hope among the disparity of relievers: Rookie <strong>Matt Strahm<\/strong>. Double-A <strong>Northwest Arkansas Naturals Manager<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wilsova01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vance Wilson\u00a0<\/a>called the former <strong>Neosho County Community College<\/strong> pitcher to inform him to pack his bags because he was headed for Arlington, Texas to join the Kansas City Royals on July 31. The move was made after the Royals placed <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/daviswa01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wade Davis\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>on the disabled list with forearm troubles. Strahm replaced starter<strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/geedi01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dillon Gee<\/a><\/strong> in the seventh inning of a 5-3 loss to Texas. In a 1\/3 of an inning, he struck out one, walked one, gave up one hit and an earned run.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This article was originally posted on our parent site, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Sports<\/a>. It can be read in full at the site. We are now expanding, with a dedicated site for all your baseball analysis, news and opinion. So stay tuned to <a href=\"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Baseball<\/a>, where we will bring you all of your favorite Last Word features, and much more, from now on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Kansas City Royals bullpen was once the cornerstone of a team that made back-to-back World Seriesappearances, winning it all in 2015. Unfortunately, that lights out dominance just hasn\u2019t carried over into the summer of the 2016 season. In Tuesday night\u2019s loss to the Chicago White Sox, reliever Kelvin Herrera surrendered a three-run home run [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":60,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1032],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royals","tag-matt-strahm"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}