Johnny Cueto Deals Royals the October Ace

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Good thing, too, because Cueto gave up 15 runs in those two games.

Cueto was in the Minor Leagues for three seasons, and has excelled at many levels, but really turned heads during the 2007 season. Cueto started his career for the Gulf Coast Reds of the Rookie Gulf Coast League, posting a 5.02 ERA, before being promoted to the High-A Sarasota Reds of the Florida State League, where he finished his 2005 season. Johnny has had progressively better seasons since. In 2006, Cueto was placed in Low A Dayton, blasting out of the gates, and posting a 2.61 ERA, and a 0.88 WHIP.

He beat the Houston Astros in the decisive Game 5 of the division series, giving up two hits in eight innings. He beat the New York Mets in Wednesday night’s important Game 2 of the World Series, giving up two hits in nine innings in a 7-1 victory at Kauffman Stadium.

If the bad start at the Rogers Centre raised some questions, it also provided the Royals with one very important answer as they planned their World Series rotation. Cueto pitched Game 2, and he’ll pitch Game 6 if the series gets that far.

Neither of those starts would be on the road.

So when Cueto ran into trouble in the fourth inning Wednesday, walking two of the first three batters he faced and getting frustrated with Mark Carlson’s strike zone, he didn’t hear the sing-song “Kway-toe! Kway-toe!” that haunted him in the 2013 Wild Card Game in Pittsburgh or last week in Canada.

All he heard was catcher Salvador Perez, reminding him to just follow his mitt.

Game 2 was the one in which the pitching matchup supposedly favored the Mets, with the dominating deGrom against the inconsistent Cueto. Instead, Cueto was the one who dominated.

“This is why they got him,” Pete Rose said on the Fox postgame show. “This is the Johnny Cueto we knew in Cincinnati.”

This is the Johnny Cueto the Royals traded for. No matter what, that trade now stands as a total success.

By

Danny Knobler, MLB Lead Writer

Oct. 29, 2015

Source: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2583874-johnny-cueto-deals-royals-the-october-ace-they-coveted-with-game-2-masterpiece