It's an off-day for our Royals, as they travel from Chicago to Colorado for a weekend set against the Rockies. Hopefully Bell's been making countless motivational speeches and "lookin' guys in the eye" and letting them know that this will not stand!

The Royals are now 5-20 against the AL Central this season, which is a fairly damning indication of their talent-level. Granted, the Central is having a solid season, and other than the Royals there are no train-wreck teams this season, when in the past their have sometimes been three. Still, the three-division format is baseball's unacknowledged form of parity control, putting the so-called "small-market" teams in the same division, and guaranteeing one of them a playoff spot. So, the Twins get a short series against the Yankees... sounds like a much better and quicker route to equity.

I digress. Let's take a look at some Royals numbers for June:

Angel Berroa: .235/.287/.333

Tony G.: .396/.453/.521

Mike Sweeney: .250/.250/.375 (good job on not taking a walk this month Mike)

Shane Costa: .297/.366/.405

Super Joe McEwing: .368/.429/.421 (he drew a walk? when?)

Emil Brown: .362/.416/.551 (wow, a legitimate major league hitter)

T. Long: .407/.444/.644 (you can't stop Terrence Long...)

David DeJesus: .286/.382/.416

Mark Teahen: .279/.310/.368

Ruben Gotay: .288/.358/.525

John Buck: .260/.288/.380

Matt Stairs: .222/.379/.378(still drawing his walks, slumping otherwise)

On the whole, you can see that June's been a good month for the Royals at the plate, despite downturns by Stairs and Sweeney that might have prevented the team from being really hot this month. T-Long, Gotay and Emil are having strong months, with DeJesus, Super Joe and Costa finding ways to contribute. Buck and Teahen haven't been great, but they haven't been completely terrible either.

Still, it's gonna be a long season in Kansas City, and it looks now like the Bell-Shine may be wearing off.