[Note: I'm writing this at 8:50 PM. It's still the fifth inning. There's not much point in continuing on down the path in which I watch a game, see how the Royals continue to fail to score runs, and end up losing to a team that I'd generally label as a bad team but don't really feel like ascribing that label to as they're quite possibly better than the Royals despite a terrible (and I mean "terrible") starting rotation. As such, you are reading a recap that was written well before the game was over, though one could argue that it was over before it started. The same argument could be made for this season.]
Predictably--and I use the word predictably here because I quite literally predicted that this would happen in the text of the Game Thread article--Samuel Deduno completely shut down the Royals tonight. If you haven't heard of Samuel Deduno, don't worry. You shouldn't have. He is fringe Major Leaguer who is in a starting rotation simply because the Minnesota Twins--the same team whose rotation is currently filled out with Scott Diamond, Kevin Correia, Mike Pelfrey, and P.J. Walters, whose name I had neither seen nor heard before the moment that I decided to see who was currently starting for the Twins--do not have a starting pitcher who has earned more than 0.5 fWAR on this season.
Of course, Deduno held the Royals to three hits in the first five innings, adding to base-runners to the mix by way of the walk. This is the same Deduno who entered the night as replacement level with his robust 0.0 fWAR. With the Twins giving him a three-run buffer by way of a Ryan Doumit solo shot (yes, it is possible to hang dong in Kauffman Stadium) in the fourth, and a pair of RBI singles from the smoothed wood that Josh Willingham and Ryan Doumit white-knuckled at the plate in the fifth.
As I finished that paragraph, Deduno mowed down the Royals in order to finish out the sixth.
This game is as good as over. More importantly, this team does not deserve my or anyone else's attention past the six inning mark virtually every night of the week.
Screw this team that was so poorly constructed by its over-matched and underwhelming General Manager.
We need #anustart.
[Note #2: The Royals did lose. That makes this the 11th straight home loss, SETTING A NEW FRANCHISE RECORD!]