The Start: the good, the bad and the ugly

Three wins and three losses on the road; two wins against one of the best teams and then two painful losses against one of the worst. And top it off by getting swept at home by your division rival while giving up 32 runs in three games. These are your 2012 KC Royals. Well, lets hope not. So far there have already been some pretty big stumbles on the road to success for these young Royals, lets take a look at the good, the bad and the ugly...

Hitting

The Good: There hasn't been anything really great about the lineup so far other than some unexpected hot starts by secondary players. The one exception might be Butler; his 5 2Bs and 2 HRs hopefully indicate that he's getting closer to that .900+ OPS level that really separates him from a David Ortiz. It's wouldn't take much, if just a few more of those off-the-wall doubles and warning track flyouts make it over the fence Billy could easily be a 40 2B 30 HR player. Oh yeah, kudos to Getzie, YUNI and Humberto on their respective hot starts.

The Bad: Alex Gordon has been off to a slow start, it's probably nothing to get too worked up about, but he needs to pick it up soon. We've already seen way too much Ned Yost line-up tinkering thus far;  Alcides number two, no Getzie, no wait...Frenchy? Obviously the injury to Cain has led to much of this, but Yost just loves to unnecessarily play with his line-ups. For the love of God just pick one and give it a week! Also, I much prefer the Hosmer of opening weekend to the one from this past week, but even his outs are more enjoyable to watch than most.

The Ugly: Lorenzo Cain's  terrible start and subsequent placement on the DL were not the way any of us wanted to see the year begin. It would be nice to see the same person in CF from year to year, but I have the feeling we're going to be playing the Bubba Starling waiting game for the next few years. Centerfield is such a difficult position to lock down. Obviously I'm not giving up on Lorenzo, but I was really looking forward to him being there everyday when the year started, after all I've seen what Mitch Maier can do.

Starting Rotation

The Good: Bruce Chen is an ACE! Well maybe not quite yet. But he's proven those ugly numbers he put up in spring training were all just a product of the thin desert air, hopefully. I still don't understand how he can get out Albert Pujols, but maybe the secret will be revealed one day in his must read tell all book. And lets not forget about Danny Duffy, it's just one start, but he really is the only thing worth getting excited about in the entire Royals starting rotation.

The Bad: Jonathan Sanchez, in two starts he's gone 7.2 innings, walked 7 and given up 7 ERs. Not exactly the production we were hoping to see from him. For the Royals to surprise anyone this year he needed to have an exceptional year, and so far we haven't seen anything which would lead us to believe that he's headed for a breakout year.

The Ugly: It doesn't get much uglier than this. Yes, it was one of those innings where everything went wrong, but still we've seen Hochevar post way too many of these types of innings. Would anyone really be that upset if Teaford got a few starts? Is it really any less likely that he could be the #3 starter we all had hoped Hochevar could be? We spend way too much time kicking people when they're down here at the PBR, but unless someone really steps up in the minors, the Royals will need to go out and get an ace (see Cincinatti, Cleveland, New York, Washington, Arizona, etc.). It was asking too much for Hoch to be that guy, but if they want to make the "Our Time" slogan more believable than the classic "Juntos Podemos" slogan from Tony Pena, they're really going to need a boost to the rotation.

Bullpen

The Good: The quantity is certainly here, however no one has been without their faults so far. But the sheer amount of quality arms is what is so impressive. Watching Kelvin Herrera blow 102 mph fastballs by hitters yesterday and knowing that he's the fourth or fifth man in the bullpen makes this team fun to watch.

The Bad: During the Cleveland series we saw what happens to bullpens when their starters can't make it to the fifth inning. If this keeps happening, no amount of hard throwers will be able to withstand the damage done to their overworked arms.

The Ugly: It can't possibly get much uglier than this. Despite piling up a nice amount of strikeouts the ERAs for the relievers have been pretty high. As a result, the Royals' pen has not held leads or kept the game close this year, i.e. their job. This is one ugly which can turn around quickly, but this is supposed to be one of our strengths so if it doesn't this year could stay bad for 153 more games.

Team

The Good:  It's early. That's really about all I've got. I could tell you that the team has been "resilient" or "tough" or they've "kept trying" or any number of things, but I'll leave that to Yostie.

The Bad:  Our new TV announcer (no need to beat a dead horse), our record, the fact that Tigers are really good, basically everything. I'm still a believer, but so far nothing has changed.

The Ugly:  The Cleveland series, with an exclamation mark. Ugly defense, ugly pitching, ugly luck, ugly breaks, ugly fights and ugly swings equal a very ugly result. It's hard to stay positive after this one, and by the way...

Up next is Justin Verlander and the Tigers. Just the kind of game you want when trying to turn things around.