Nine games in and believe it or not, its not all bad. The Royals stand at 4-5 with Grienke scheduled to have a shot at getting the Royals to .500 even after some crushing defeats...you know what we'll take it, right? Here's the Good, Bad and Ugly of it all.
STARTING PITCHERS
THE GOOD: Davies, Bannister, Hochevar and Grienke have been solid, no complaints we just want to see more of the same.
THE BAD: Out of the eight GBHD starts they have been rewarded with exactly two wins and its not a stretch to say that they could have eight wins; Hochever had the worst perfomance and actually got the win and the only other non-quality start (what a stat) was Grinke´s horrendous 6 2-3, 4ER game that easily could have been a win. No need to go in to detail of the why (see previous two posts) but an unrewarded starting rotation hurts.
THE UGLY: Gil Meche´s return. After starting the year on the DL only to return a few days later (not sure why) Gil was pounded by the Red Sox. He hadn´t pitched in a long time and it´s strange that he was rushed back so soon but the fact remains he hasn´t seemed like the Gil Meche of his first 2.5 years in KC in a long time. Thus, he has fans wondering if he might actually be done as even a decent starter and will spend the last 2.5 years as a Royal with more DL stints than wins and be $25 mil down the drain.
THE OFFENSE
THE GOOD: It´s all good! You would not have ever imagined you would be saying this about the Royals' offense BUT the fact remains that we have one of the top offenses in the league. We have the league's leading hitter and stolen base threat (Scotty Pods) at the top of the order to go along with one of the top power hitters in the middle (Jose Guillen!). Not to mention Ankiel has shown flashes of Awesomeness, Billy is still rolling from last year, Kendall has been the absolute shocker of the offense, Yuni has been acceptable, and DDJ has looked better than ever.
THE BAD: Other than Jose´s flashes-of-old power streak it has been based on A LOT of singles. However, that this is the only negative makes the BAD much less bad.
THE UGLY: No Royals fan has any hope of this continuing; Guillen on his way to 40hrs HAH! Scotty Pods 100 steals and a .350 hitter, lets check back in a few weeks. Ankiel 100 RBI, might be the most probable of all the long shots, but still I´m not buying it. Kendall AND Yuni both hitting above .260, I´ll give you all the odds you want. But its nice to dream.
THE BULLPEN
THE GOOD: It´s surprising that there is something to write about in this category but, hats off to John Parrish on not allowing either a hit or a run and being a bright spot in a giant pile of... Also, despite batters hitting over .330 against them, Farny and J Cruz both have ERAs under 2.50 (in a category so thin on GOODs this makes the cut but, they could have just as easily been lumped into the bad).
THE BAD: See THE UGLY, its soooo BAD that bad is too good of a word.
THE UGLY: Colon, Tejada, Dusty and Mendoza. The best of them has an ERA of 9.00, I could go on with bad stats but I started to feel nauseous. Here are my nicknames for the crew, and please feel free to add anything you´ve got in the comments.
Colon: "Charcol", the base of a good KC pen BBQ.
Tejada: "Lighter Fluid", highly flammable and overused but a must to get the fire started.
Dusty: "Mesquite", he's the wood chips that add the special smoky flavor to good BBQ.
Mendoza: "The Match", throw him on top of equal parts Colon, Tejada and Dusty and you've got your perfect KC bullpen BBQ, one that makes (insert favorite KC BBQ spot here) jealous.
Will Grinke start the Royals on a big streak up in Minnesota or will Grienke continue an improbable steak of bad luck amongst the starters? Will the Royals offense go flat and come back to earth or will we all have to congratulate Dayton Moore on his great offseason finds? Will the bullpen right the ship and go on to have a decent year or will the tires continue to come off and keep the Royals from even being respectable?
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