I have a simple question: What has June 11th looked like for the last 10 years of Royals baseball? The following chart compares our division rank, league rank, games behind, run differential, and winning percentage. Excited to see "progress"?

My first thought was: Jesus Christ, 16-45 in 2006 seems like so long ago... and 31-31 in 2003 seems like longer. We hit rock bottom three seasons after our most successful year in almost two decades, but since 2009, the boys have been about 10 games under .500 at this point in every season. That's four years in a row of looking up at 3+ teams in the division by mid-June, and four years in a row where Kansas City fans can already start making plans for October because they sure won't be going to any games at Kauffman. The good news, I guess, is that the run differential of -30 is the best it's been at this point since 2003. From 2003 to 2011, the Royals were outscored by an average of 1.04 runs per game. In 2012, they're only being outscored by 0.52 runs per game!

Progress.