You will never see the writers at Royals Review celebrating a victory in the fashion that the Royals are in this photo. Mainly because I'm the only one with any athletic ability. It might also have something to do with the fact that all of us have varying degrees of skepticism with regard to what Kansas City might accomplish as a team this year.
We find ourselves, however, heading into a weekend series with Minnesota with the Royals on the brink of making things interesting. Once again, the boys in blue find themselves just five games below the .500 mark.
We've been here before.
On the morning of May 16th, Kansas City had clawed its way out of the bowels of a twelve game losing streak to stand at 15-20 with a five game homestand in front of them. The Royals went 1-4 in that homestand on their way to falling back to ten games under even. They got back to six games under twice in the first week of June, only to fall back once more to ten under by getting swept by Pittsburgh.
Again, the Royals closed within five games of even on the morning of June 22nd, only to get obliterated by the hated Cardinals. Of course, as we know, they responded by sweeping Tampa and once again find themselves poised to actually approach .500.
Can they though? Four games at Minnesota gives one hope, but fourat Toronto and three at Detroit seem problematical. Of course, if Toronto is willing to start Sean O'Sullivan and Jesse Chavez, I'm feeling considerably better.
First things first, though.
The Twins are not a good baseball team and they are worse at home than on the road. If the Royals are going to be somebody....hell, if the Royals are anybody they should be thinking three of four. A sweep? Tough to do on the road and harder yet with a doubleheader in the middle fo the series. Not to mention that this is the Royals.
Still, would three of four get your excitement level up? Both Royals Authority and Royals Review developed reputations for being pretty cynical - no doubt caused by how far all of us are from 'the dirt' - but if the Royals came off this trip 7-4 (however, unlikely that may be), would even a fair number of us start watching the standings a lot closer than we are used to this time of year?