Reinstated

After taking a self-imposed exile from watching, writing and generally paying too much attention to the Royals, I have Reinstated myself from the DL and was able to catch-up with the team during their series vs. the Canadiens. There is actually a lot to talk about with the team not related to their play on the field, which is probably a good thing because the Toronto series provided more of the same; a revolving door starting rotation, a smattering of offense here and there, and of course ANOTHER extra inning win!

Now who's our Closer again?

I come back to find out that Joakim was apparently never really relinquished of his duties as closer because the team played so bad that Aaron Crow's stint never provided him with the opportunity to close out a win. So today Joakim was back doing his best Mike Macdougal impersonation with a bases loaded save and all is well in the world. I'm still pulling for Joakim, but you know it's just a matter of time before he blows another save, and then what do you do? I guess he's earned the right to try, try and try again. It's like Dayton and Yost believe that they have this magical control over their players' psyche and they know when said player is "ready" even when the rest of us are just shaking our heads asking Why???

Poor Mikey

In another case of itchy trigger finger Dayton Moore needing to do something just for the sake of it, he's sent Mike Aviles down to Omaha in favor of future 3B superstar Mike Moustakas. This is the same as the Hosmer promotion, I feel so bad for Mike Aviles that I just can't be too excited about seeing Moustakas in the bigs. Hosmer has pretty much made me forget about Kila but Mikey has been around for a while and deserved better. Basically, if Moustakas can do anything close to Aviles' rookie year it will be a complete success or if he can mirror Aviles' offensive production from last year it would a good start to his career, but that's just the problem: he has to do exactly what Mike has already done just to be worthy of the call-up. Obviously, the problem here is really Chris Getz and my inability to believe that his defense is really that much of an upgrade over the potential offense from Aviles. However, let's just give the organization the benefit of the doubt and say that Aviles is such a butcher at 2B that he can't play there. What about Wilson? In 131 games for the Royals this is what he's done: .294/.367/.471, 15 HRs, 66 RBI. If Moustakas does this, he'll be awesome. But again, Wilson already has done this and we know Moose isn't known for his defensive skills, so did they do this really to platoon Moose and Betemit? Is Wilson Moving to 2B? Can Chris Getz throw a knuckle ball? The obvious play here is to wait until you can trade Betemit then call-up Moose and you have Aviles as the perfect utility man. So unless Moutsakas can play 2B there was no real need to call him up, but I guess I have to admit that I am much more excited to watch the Royals play this weekend.

The No Brainer of all No-Brainers

So you're the GM of a baseball team and you really want that quick-to-the-majors college pitcher, but you just happen to draft after the four best pitchers are taken. The next best player is a high school player that lives in your city and might be "The Next" Ken Griffey Jr. Also, his first name is Bubba and his last name begins with Star. So the Royals really had a tough decision with the fifth pick in the draft, fingers crossed 2014 he's coming-up just like Moose and Hosmer are now. I don't know anything about high school baseball so that's all I'm going to say at the risk of sounding like an idiot.

Ringling Brothers presents the Royals staring rotation

I've also returned from my Royals-free respite to find out that our best pitcher is Felipe Paulino, a scrap heap Dayton Moore find if I've ever seen one. I hope he's good, not much more to go on than two really good starts, so we'll leave that one alone too. Did you know that the Royals have TWO pitchers who are qualified league leaders, though obviously they are leading the league in nothing. If you combined Luke Hochevar - yes, he had an awesome game today - and Jeff Francis they would just barely squeak into the Top 10 of strikeouts. Our team leader in wins is Joakim Soria! But don't worry because help is on the way, Bruce Chen and Kyle Davies started both games of a double header for our AA team and each managed to give-up four runs and take the loss. Who's excited to see Kyle back in the rotation? I guess it could be Vin Mazzaro who went 5 innings, gave up 6 runs and actually lowered his ERA by 5 runs. I feel like this is redundant, but the starting rotation is just not good. All aboard the Felipe Paulino band wagon.

Moose & the Royals in Cali

So Westward the Royals go, hoping Felipe Paulino can keep pitching like Alexi Ogando, Moose can hit like 2008 Mike Aviles, Kyle Davies and Jason Kendall get re-injured and Joakim has really, truly and finally figured in out. It's good to be a Royals fan again, the rest did me well.