Jumping around, via bullet points and a lack of a coherent theme. Hey, I'm doing this for soda money...
• Grimace raised the possibility that we've given Teahen a "free pass" for his mediocre performance this year last night in the diaries. Playing primarily as a right fielder, Teahen is hitting .285/.358/.407 on the year. American League hitters are managing a .269/.338/.420 this year, so Teahen isn't exactly pushing the Royals, or killing them. Mark turns 26 this September, so its still possible to believe that he has some upside left, or that he might recapture the stroke he had last season, when he was the second-best third-baseman in the AL in the second half. Is the lack of power a side-effect of his recovering from surgery? Is he a 15-20 homer guy who is fighting through a down year? Grimace compared Teahen to sometimes wipping boy Tony Pena Jr, but what stands out to me is his similarity to David DeJesus and his .281/.367/.402 line. Both players who are easy to root for and hard to criticize, but also seem to be lacking a certain 15% improvement that could really make them nice players.
Should Mark be the recipient of more angst?
• Dotel rumors continue to fly. Sadly, a possible trade might prevent Dotel (11 trades as a Royal) from passing the likes of Scott Service (12), Larry Gura (12) and Renie Martin (11) on the Royals All-Time Save List.
• The guys on STO here in Cleveland are mentioning that the Indians are in on the Dotel talks.
• Joe Sheehan contends that the Braves could have got 85% of Texiera's production just by playing Salty at first all along. Makes sense to me.
• Through 104 games, the Royals have fielded 82 lineups and have used 91 batting orders. The new batting order leader is:
1. DeJesus
2. Grudz
3. Teahen
4. Butler
5. Gload
6. Gordon
7. Brown
8. Buck
9. Pena
We've seen that baby 4 times, one other batting order has been trotted out three times, and everything else is a 2-time or 1-time only special. Just for the record, I don't have a problem with the lineup/batting order promiscuity in principle. I'm mostly just intellectually fascinated by the variety.
• At six games back, the Royals are closer to the Twins than they have been in four years. Considering the elite (cheap too) offensive and pitching talent the Twins have, its hard to not be critical of what Terry Ryan has done and hasn't done in recent years. For more on the Twins and whats gone wrong, click here.
Tonight its Gil Meche (7-7, 3.76 ERA) against Scott Baker (4-4, 5.30 ERA). The Royals have no excuse not to keep winning.