Your pitching matchup:

Remember when Jim Leyland's Old School wisdom and take-no-gruff attitude was so inspirational and perfect?

Oh, and Verlander's ugly ERA? Guess what starting pitcher has had the most tack-on runs charged to him thanks to poor bullpen support? Yea, that'd be Justin Verlander.

Section One: Analogies

Royals:Tigers::

A. Orioles:Royals

B. Balls:Strikes

C. War of 1812:Hundred Years War

D. Buster Olney: Bill James

Section Two: Antonyms

Zack Greinke:

A. Neutral

B. Below Replacement-Level

C. The Worst Starter in the A.L.

D. A Pitcher

Section Three: Sentence Completion

Forget 2010, if not for a ------ lineup, Dayton Moore's Royals could be contending for a playoff spot now.

A. Hacktastic

B. Overburdened

C. Inconsistent

D.Rambunctious

Since a season opening sweep of the Tigers in Detroit, the Royals have gone 13-21, while the Tigers have stumbled along at 16-19. Still, thanks to Detroit's cold start, the Royals have been able to mostly avoid last-place this season, although that could change as quickly as tonight. Actually, in terms of the AL Central standings, the Royals have been all over the place:

The Royals hit fourth place last Tuesday for the first time and have remained there ever since. Meanwhile, the Tigers have been in fourth or fifth for nearly the entire season: they have spent exactly one day in second and one day in third (this happened consecutively, when they climbed to 14-15). To get back to fourth, they'll need to beat Zack Greinke.

No, it's not a weekly "forum" hosted by Bob Costas dedicated to having his friends come on and discuss issues with only the insight and intelligence that a guy who stands in front of a camera can deliver. No, not that at all.

It's Costa Now!

What this lineup needs is Costa. Costa now.

OK, that may be a bit of an overstatement. But I do think that it's time to give Costa an extended bit of playing time at the Major League level.

For whatever reason, a true Free Costa campaign has never really caught on on this site. He's had his supporters over the years, but no one has ever been too excited about his upside, or so it seems. Moreover, he's actually seen a fair amount of action with the Royals, albeit in weird chunks and in strange situations. Basically, this has been the only thing that I'd ever thought about him: the Royals have found a number of lineup slots and positions to play him, while never really committing to anything much. Costa for all the world has looked like a tweener: he can't play center and he can't hit enough to hold a corner slot. End of story.

I'm not sure that's necessarily true anymore. Costa is hitting .313/.357/.565 this season in Omaha, and has already hit seven home runs. Costa has always been a .300 hitter in the minors, but the knock against him has always been a lack of power. Well, he may have improved in that regard, and a modest power spike in the mid to late twenties is actually fairly standard. Furthermore, this is the Royals we're talking about, and at a certain point Costa's status vis-a-vis traditional conceptions of how to build a lineup is irrelevant. The question is, essentially, is he better use of a roster spot than Joey Gathright. Only it's not. Gathright is out of options and must clear waivers to hit the minors. It's hard to see Moore jettisoning Gathright (or running the risk of it) for a few weeks of Costa. So who has options remaining? Basically no position players other than Butler and Gordon. I believe Peralta might , but I am not positive. Ditto for Yabuta.

No, as odd as it sounds, barring any trades or dramatic changes of course, the only player that Costa can easily replace on the Big League roster is Billy Butler. Sending Butler to Omaha so that Costa can snag Joey Gathright's playing time isn't a terrifically obvious move, but I think it has some merit.

- Costa can outhit Gathright. Gathright is a career .265/.328/.312 hitting in the Major Leagues. While is lack of home run power is obvious, it's startling how few doubles Gathright produces, especially considering his speed.  Last year, Gathright had 70 hits and 62 of them were singles.  As a Royal, Gathright has cranked out 15 doubles, four triples and one home run in 586 trips to the plate. On a different team, Gathright's dogged efforts to get on base (he did post a .371 OBP last year) might be more valuable, but on the Royals it just means he can advance to third base on a Mark Teahen single and be stranded when Jose Guillen strikes out. The thing is, the knock on Costa has always been that he's basically a singles hitter, and he very well might be. Joey Gathright is still a bigger singles hitter, one of the most singles-based hitters in the universe, actually. Again, Costa is showing some pop this season in Omaha, and it wouldn't be unheard of for a guy to flash a little more power than previously shown when he turns 26. Costa doesn't have to slug .550 in the Majors to be an upgrade over Gathright. He doesn't have to slug .500. If Costa can slug .450 in the majors this year, maybe even just .400, he'll probably do enough to off-set what even the best case scenario for Joey Gathright is. Even if all of that isn't true, and Gathright's likely to be a better overall player, the Royals know what they have in Gathright at this point (I hope) but regarding Costa, they don't. They need to find out.

- Billy Butler needs a sabbatical. There is perhaps a deep irony in calling up Costa to chase after a 100 points of slugging but at the cost of demoting Billy Butler, as I well understand. However, at the moment the matter may be mute because Butler is slugging .362. That number is even more remarkable when you consider that Billy is actually hitting .277. As they did with Alex Gordon last season, the Royals have shown remarkable patience with Butler, which in many ways is very admirable, even courageous in the limited way that these matters can truly be courageous. Considering that Butler has no baserunning value and limits Hillman's options afield, it goes without saying that he's not pushing the offense much by hitting an empty .277.  As is often said, the American League is not an instructional league, and I think that there is sufficient evidence that Butler could still use some lower-stress instruction in many aspects of the game. While I am generally not in favor of arb-clock gaming, it must also be said that it may be in the team's financial best interest to have Butler work on things in Omaha. Gordon and Butler are similar, but they are not the same: Butler is much younger and lacks much of Gordon's overall polish. Even though Gordon struggled last season, a rational case can be made that it was good for him to experience that, and hopefully learn from it, at the highest level. It isn't obvious that Butler is at that point.

-Increased Strategical Flexibility. With Costa replacing Butler, Hillman gains another chess piece for the late game pinch-hitting that he seems to be in favor of. The Royals have a number of extremely slow players (Buck, Olivo, Grudz, Gload) as well as a certain shortstop who essentially should never bat more than 3 times a game if you can avoid it. With Costa around, Hillman should feel more comfortable using German and Gathright more optimally and earlier in the game. Or, he can keep German in his back pocket, and feel safer using Callaspo earlier. Costa might also be useful in spelling Guillen and Teahen, while allowing Hillman to feel comfortable that he still has an infield reserve available in German. Butler creates problems, Costa creates solutions. (Ok, that's unbelievably cheesy, but I couldn't resist.)

The best Shane Costa has ever performed at the Major League level came at the opening of the 2006 season, when he was a nearly-regular player for the first 21 games of the campaign. Over that stretch, Costa hit .317/.333/.533, in 61 PAs. A little hacktastic, sure, but that issue is almost a sunk cost with this team at this point. Since then, despite appearing a lot, he's never really got extended playing time, which has likely driven his numbers down. Maybe, maybe not. Yes, unlike, say, Justin Huber, Costa has actually been given a solid chunk of playing time, over 400 PAs in fact, but on the whole it's been haphazard, with lots of pinch-hitting and spot starts. Plus, he's older now, and, the wonderful thing about being in your twenties is that it's a rare moment in your life when being older actually makes you better at stuff.

In both the short and long term, the Royals would be better served by replacing Billy Butler with Shane Costa on the roster. Butler will, without any doubt in my mind, have the better career in baseball. Actually, I'd be willing to be a large sum that he'll be better next year. He might even be better by August. But, with all facets of the game considered equally, he's not not better now. This season isn't about winning, it's about positioning the team to win next year (right? we don't have to wait until 2010, do we?). Billy Butler is still just 22 years old and remains one of the youngest players in baseball. His future is bright. However, he has no position and appears lost on the bases and he isn't hitting. The Royals' plan for him seems to be one of resignation: he is what he is and he isn't going to get better, so let's just guarantee that he becomes a Super Two and accept him for what he is. If that's the case, then the half-hearted efforts to get him starts at first base seem especially ill-conceived. Nothing is being accomplished by the status quo, and even less so will be forwarded once inter-league play begins.

What the Royals need now, is Costa, sweet Costa.

---------

Appendix:

- Royals Authority on Costa in 2007 and then in 2008, the latter link, when they "broke up" with Costa.

The hits just keep on coming, don't they?

If internet sensation Brian Bannister (4.46 ERA) can't beat the Orioles this afternoon at the K, then no one can. After posting a 0.86 ERA in his first three starts, Bannister has struggled a bit, to the tune of an 8.02 ERA in his last three starts. That stretch actually includes his 2-0 tough luck loss to the Tribe back in April, which makes the 8.02 particularly stunning. You add it all up, and he looks middle of the road in aggregate, but it hasn't really played out that way. Or maybe it has, and that's what being in the middle is like. I don't know.

Last night during the game thread I randomly decided to check up on Shane Costa, and discovered that he's mashing in Omaha. Costa's always been able to hit .300 in the minors with ease, but what may be different this year is his power: he already has seven homers and is slugging .565. (His line on the year is .313/.357/.565.) He's 26, and in over 1500 minor league PAs he's now the owner of a .314/.370/.483 line. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I don't think it's a given that the Royals wouldn't be better served giving Joey Gathright's at bats to Costa for a few months. I'd be willing to exchange some of Joey's singles for at least the off chance that Costa might be able to drive the ball, at least a little. Given the multiple discussions of Butler and his arb-clock, it also might not be a totally insane idea to switch out Butler and Shane for a month, especially considering that Shane can play the field and that Butler has looked more like Ken Harvey than Manny Ramirez thus far. Finally, I love German, but since he's not playing anyway, we might as well see what Costa has.

Thoughts on Costa?

(Call your mom.)

I haven't yet figured out how this feature will be set up. This time I will post the numbers followed by some statistic that jumped out at me as a reason for the players success or lack thereof. This time the starters will be covered, maybe next time I will cover the relievers. All data from Royals.com and fangraphs.com.

Zack Greinke has lowered his line drive percentage to 5% better than any earlier point in his career. It currently sits at 15.8% and as roughly 74% of line drives fall in for hits this is probably a big factor in his success. Bonus stat(s):1.12 GB/FB Ratio 1.12 second highest of his career.

Gil Meche's fastball has dropped over 1 mph from last year  and is the slowest of his career. This could explain his high HR/9 Ratio of 1.58 ( the highest of his career). Bonus stat(s): 5.72 K/9 3.35 BB/9 both worse than last year.

Brian Bannister has thrown his fastball about 5% less than last year but fangraphs is showing a cutter at 85mph as the source of that change. This could be a sign of Banny's problems as he has said that he junked his cutter a few years ago (which fangraphs seems to back up showing none over the last few years) and Posnanski has noted in his Banny Logs that  this cutter that seems to have hurt him this year. Bonus stat(s): How could I give a bonus stat on Banny and not have it be BABIP: 2.85 which is still below league average and his K/9 is  the highest of his career at 5.10.

Brett Tomko has suddenly turned into a groundball pitcher with a GB/FB Ratio of 1.84. This is by far the best of his career, but otherwise his numbers seem to be well within his career averages. Bonus stat(s): He is slightly more than doubling his career curveball percentage throwing that pitch 13.4% of the time. This is at teh expense of all of his other pitches suggesting that he isn't junking something else to throw the curve.

Luke Hochevar 4.18 BB/9 is my only complaint as it  is too high but I suspect as he gets more time it will go down. Bonus stat(s): This is not a stat at all really but I was at the last game where he pitched and I was truly impressed. He looked done a couple of times and got himself through it. I was surprised to see him back out there in the 7th but he pitched well in that frame. The walk before the homerun was the killer to me because he should have been out of the inning by then.

Bonus Player: Joakim Soria has a K/BB Ratio of 15. Bonus stat(s): 10.13 K/9 there is no point in talking about any of the hitting stats against Soria because virtually no one has even come close. Forget about walking too as his BB/9 is .68. I will leave the starter v reliever debate to others but he has to pitch more than the 60 or so innings that he is on pace for. Bonus Bonus stat(s): .38 WHIP.

Was last night the worst game of the year? Hard to argue against it. Then again, the Royals might as well not even take the field against those warriors of the Chesapeake, the Orioles.

This year the Royals are 0-2 against the Orioles. Last year, they went 0-7 against them, in 2006, 1-5. The last time the Royals beat the O's was on July 25, 2006, a glorious 7-5 victory for Mark Redman. All-Star Mark Redman. The Orioles actually led that game 4-0, but thanks to two Mark Teahen homers off Kris Benson (remember him? remember when Teahen had power?) the Royals stormed back to take the lead, and eventually, the game. The Orioles would go on to take the final two games of that series, beginning a mysterious dominance over the Royals that has now produced eleven straight Baltimore victories.

Tonight, Brett Tomko (4.98 ERA) looks to change all that. But to do so, he'll need to out-duel Garret Olson.

If we can know only one thing about tonight's glorious Royals-Orioles matchup, it is this: Steve Traschel is happy to be here.

Steve Traschel has made over $39 million dollars playing baseball.

Of course, as Royals fans, we prefer Gil Meche's lockjaw smirk of gloom, doom and menacing masculinity and contempt:

Of course, that was last year's picture. Now, we've got this strange animal:

The Royals are 1-13 against the Orioles since 2006.