Kansas City Royals: What if Royals had cheated in 2014-2015?

FIRST INNING

Right away as the game started, it’s very simple to steal signs from Posey. He clearly lays one, two, three and four fingers down when calling for pitches. Hudson didn’t seem to want to shake off any of the pitches and its also obvious that Posey calls the pitches, not the dugout.

In the first, Hudson seemed to have command of all of his pitches – even early on in the inning he was hitting spots. We can assume he would have still got Alcides Escobar to line-out and walked Nori Aoki the same way even if KC had stolen signs. Lorenzo Cain most likely still breaks hit bat on some inside heat and grounds into the fielder’s choice and ends up at first.

It’s the Eric Hosmer at bat where stealing the signs would have produced something for the Royals. Before the first pitch during that at bat, Posey clearly calls for an off-speed pitch down, but on that pitch, Hudson misses up in the zone. Hosmer takes a huge swing, but has his weight way out on the front foot. He swings and misses.

Had Hosmer known that the pitchwas going to be an off-speed, he clearly swings just as hard, but makes contact. He easily would have hit that ball a long way. Most likely he would have placed the ball into the fountain giving the Royals an early 2-0 lead to end the inning.

Instead, Hosmer strikes out looking on a 90 MPH four seam fastball that was right down the middle of the plate  just above knee high with Cain running.

SECOND INNING

It should be acknowledged that the lineup shifts a bit based on the fact that Hosmer actually struck out to end the first inning, but we’ll let the lineup continue as it did that night.

Billy Butler led off the inning with a single up the middle on an 81 MPH off-speed pitch. Posey once again was simply putting fingers down real quick to call the pitch.

One finger was then placed down on the very next pitch from Hudson; It was a two seam fastball. Alex Gordon jumped on it to double to the right-center gap to drive in Butler.

With Gordon on second, it gets a bit more challenging to try and steal signs. Posey starts to mix it up with different combinations. Salvador Perez then gets hit with the very next pitch before any signs can be looked at.

With Mike Moustakas up, we can finally see how Posey mixes it up. He flashes a 4-2-1 with Hudson throwing an 82 MPH change-up in the dirt. The next pitch he flashed a 4-1-2-3-2-fist. That combination once again 82 MPH change-up.

On the second pitch, Moose flies out to left to move Gordon to third base, so this gives us enough to realize it appears that Posey and Hudson were going with the first sign dropped in their sequence with a runner at second.

With runners at the corners, Posey goes back to just one sign to make it easy to steal pitches. Omar Infante at the plate lifted an 88 MPH pitch to center to drive in yet another run. After Alcides Escobar lines to left, the Giants make a pitching change.

During Hudson’s outing, we can conclude the sign stealing produced a big hit from Hosmer, but wouldn’t have accomplished much with the rest of the lineup because the whole team was squaring up the ball.

Former Royals pitcher Jeremy Affeldt entered the game with runners at first and second to get the final out of the inning. Posey once again does a combo where the number he drops after two fingers tells us what pitch he’s going to toss if there is a runner at second.

I believe everyone gets the point of how stealing sign works at the plate.