Third Place

I'd like to say that I'm mad about how the Royals have suddenly fallen into third place, but the truth is if we finished the season right where we're at, I'd be pretty content. The hot start was based on some unsustainable offensive production and luck and the subsequent fall back to mediocrity has left some people upset. However, the truth is that the make-up of the current team is so much more than I had hoped for at the beginning the season that you still can't but be anything more than pleasantly surprised.

Signs of the Times

The Royals have already broken two insanely long losing streaks that demonstrate just how pathetic they've been over the last 20-some years. Taking two of three from the Yankees last week marked the first time since 1999 that the team had won a series playing at Yankee stadium. And the sweep of the Twins at the K marked the first time this had happened since 1994. Taken separately these could be seen as anomalies, but together it seems that the new look 2011 Royals have shed at least some of their previous demons and gone from door mats to competitive. There have been the standard missed opportunities, but the Royals have lost very few games where they looked like they might not be able to finish ahead of some minor league teams. It's not great to be talking about the dream of finishing near .500 or in third place but just looking at those two losing streaks makes you realize that improvement is improvement.

Good pitching DOES beat Good hitting

Okay so we still don't know if this Royals offense is actually Good but going into the series against the A's it was one of the best in baseball. However, since then we've found out that Alex Gordon might not be ready to win the batting title, Jeff Francouer probably won't hit 50 HRs and Wilson Betemit isn't quite ready to be mentioned in the same breath as Jose Bautista-like career resurrections. For the better part of the last eight games the Royals offense has been shown what good pitching can do to streaky hitters. With the one exception when they beat up on the Yankees #7 starter, Ivan Nova, it is pretty clear the Royals bats aren't quite ready to handle good pitching. Not that this should really come as any big surprise or disappointment, but the Royals can take advantage of bad pitching and will most likely struggle against the Justin Verlander's of the world. As we mentioned in the previous PBR post, it's nice to know that the Royals can beat bad teams, but going 3-5 against good teams - and staying in the games they lost - is also something to be proud of.

The Rotation

Honestly I wish someone in the rotation would just step-up and suck bad enough that the team would have a good excuse to call-up one of the rookie pitchers. However, the fact is that it has been pretty respectable of late and every time you think one of them is ready fall off into the abyss, they scratch together a good start. One thing jumps out at you when you look at their stats; they don't strike out anyone. Tim Collins is a relief pitcher who has logged 21.1 innings with 25 Ks, in exactly 36 more innings or 108 outs Luke Hochevar has struck out FIVE more batters. In 32.2 more innings Jeff Francis has topped Collins by TWO strikeouts and in half the amount of innings pitched Collins has struck out more batters than Bruce Chen. With this combined melting pot of contact pitchers, it's hard to see the Royals going far in the Division no matter what Hosmer and the rest of the offense can do the rest of the season. At some point they will have to get a top of the rotation guy if they want to squeak out some more victories against better teams.
 

Home Again

 
We've been rambling on and on here at the PBR about tests, but this home stand could be the definitive test of how good/not bad they are and will be for the rest of the year. Three good teams playing well (Cardinals, Rangers and Indians), will come to visit the K and by the time the dust settles after these seven games we should have pretty clear picture if this was just a fluke April or if playing .500 baseball in September is a real possibility.