41-52; Royals Avoid Looking Ahead to Battle for Grass Creek, Destroy Evil White Sox

Wait... the Royals are allowed to win games late?

Funny thing on the Teahen inside-the-park-homer. Back when I lived in Iowa, I listened to/watched a ton of White Sox games, and I can recall both the the TV and radio guys praising Alexei Ramirez's baseball IQ/grittiness/gamerness etc. Heard the same thing on BBTN after the two-run sac fly game: he's just a BASEBALL PLAYER or something to that effect. (I have a theory that baseball media people have a positive stereotype about Cuban (as opposed to Dominican) players, in much the same way they assume that all Japanese players are fundamental Gods, brilliant situational hitters, etc.)

Looking at the Teahen HR replay, it looks like he was less than aggressive in getting the ball into the infield however.

Although Teahen's blast was mostly icing on a game that had already been trapped in the bloody trap of Royal heart, it was a nice half-cap to the game, with a delicious Soria save the other half. (So Teahen's the coffee and Soria the cake?)

• Was Jermaine Dye hearing some boos this series? I seem to remember hearing Steve Stone say that a few nights back, but wasn't totally sure since I was listening on a very static-y connection.
  
• Thank you Zack Greinke. This is the dominant performance I'd been pining for. Ideally, maybe you would have lasted eight innings, rather than seven, but I loved the eight strikeouts balanced against just one walk.
  
• Ross Gload is upping his trade value nightly. Bring us that D+ prospect now and let's begin take two of the Shealy Era.
• Your Ron Mahay ERA update is 1.88.
• With six total bases tonight, Mark Teahen now has 731 total bases as a Royal, leaving him only four behind Paul Schaal for 31st in team history. by the end of the month Teahen should be easily past Schaal and Ed Kirkpatrick (740). Passing Jim Eisenreich (783) is going to take some time, as will getting to the next rung, the tie for 27th between Wally Joyner and Darrell Porter at 824.
• Teahen's homer was his 42nd of his career, tying him with Bob Hamelin for 30th in team history.