The Royals are strange. Every year there's going to be a massive losing streak, most likely over 10 games. Something like over half of the 10+ game losing streaks this decade are courtesy of the Royals. However, as happened last season as well, a sub-par Royal lineup is also good for a massive offensive explosion once or twice a year. Not shockingly, this tends to happen at home, where the K can sometime play like mini-Coors.

In the last two games the Royals have scored 23 runs and banged out 38 hits. Sure, its the Royals, so 25 of those hits have been singles, but five homers, a triple, and seven doubles have certainly helped. Oh, and six walks. But why take a walk when it's a thousand degrees outside and the ball is flying off the bat?

Lineouts:

• Clearly, Grudz was holding the team back.
• I always thought Miguel Olivo -- who had a monster series and should be flirting with a league average OPS now -- looked baby-faced, then I saw the pictures of him from today's brawl and wondered why TPJ's dad was on the field again.
• Jose Guillen does not care for your singles. Two games, two hits, two homers.
• Everyday Rossy picked up five hits the last two days.
• Mitch Maier entered the series hitting .188 and left hitting .308.
• Since falling to 21-34, the Royals have gone 31-26.

I've been therapeutically playing the Blue Album and Pinkerton all day to try and take the sting out of how thoroughly farking mediocre Weezer's latest effort is. Yes, I realize probably no one else cares. I'm still going to complain about it when one of my favorite modern groups becomes the alternative rock equivalent of Bobby Higginson. To add video insult to musical injury, that thoroughly excreable single "The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived" won't stop bouncing around in my head. I want to punch myself in the face every time I catch myself singing the refrain. It's not a good song, but of course since it's a new song by a new brand band it's been on the radio approximately three thousand times in the last 24 hours. No, that's not a real figure. Excuse your local Stat Zombie if he makes up his own data every-so-often. To make matters worse, I can't stop running into people who offer the opinion "I don't like the new album, but the new single is cool." If you're one of these people, you should keep that a secret. If you don't, the robot that NYRoyal and have been building (remember, we share a brain) will come to your house and explain to you the true meaning of double secret probation.

Your move, creep.

Of course, the robot and I have something else we need to tell you, or we wouldn't be writing about baseball. That thing is...lead singers ruin good bands. They really do. No one else in the band likes them, and then they force the people who actually make the band good to choose between pandering to the frontman ego or going their separate ways.

Oh, yes, and there's always the Royals catching situation. I'm supposed to be writing about that, too. I think a lot of people saw this coming, but it's something we need to talk about as a blog. It's actually probably something that most teams' blogs will be talking about...the Royals need--or lack thereof--for an upgrade at catcher. No, just kidding, I mean the catchers on their own teams. You see, catchers this year are terrible. It seems a lot of us are pretty disappointed with Buck this year--and the way he ended last year after his 1.000 OPS start--but let's put things in perspective.

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The Royals finished April with a 12-15 record and ended the fifth month of the year with a 22-34 mark (now 23-34). Considering the month contained the team's epic losing streak, an overall record of 10-19 in May wasn't a total disaster, and could have been much worse.

Let's take a look at how the boys in blue did at the plate in May. First, the team totals:

101 runs is actually not last in the league, it's tied for 11th. The Angels also scored 101 (in one fewer game) and the Mariners and Indians were worse, scoring 99 and 98 runs respectively, as the new deadball era sweeps across the American League. Despite the advantage of the DH, scoring in the American League is lower than in the NL, which of course can 100% be attributed to PEDs testing. 100%. Everyone who used PEDs was a hitter in the AL. Moving on... The Royals only hit 12 homers in May, which is remarkable. Not surprisingly, no team in the AL was anywhere close to this number, as the league average was 24 homers.It isn't anything like a full consolation, but the Royals did rip 65 doubles in May, second-most in the American League. Weirdly, the Royals continue to not hit triples, despite having some decent triplers getting regular playing time. They hit just 2 in May. Then again, no one ever got poor betting against Joey Gathright's extra base hit totals.

Speaking of Gathright, now about those individual numbers, sorted by OPS:

This is how you have a bad month. For a guy who probably won't be in the Major Leagues in 2010, Tony Pena Jr. has generated a ton of discussion this month, but he isn't standing alone in the forest of horribleness. Considering defensive value and where they play, it's certain that Ross Gload (another Dayton pickup) was the worse player in May, and Alberto Callaspo wasn't far behind. You can say the same for Billy Butler, who slugged .302 with no value on defense.

Other than Miguel Olivo's studliness and a decent month from Jose Guillen (characteristically a lack of walks drags down his performance, even when he's hitting over .300) nobody else stepped into the void. Although Gordon (and Teahen) continued to get his walks and John Buck tossed in his annual random month of hitting .300, there isn't much good displayed here. (Expect a .210 average from Buck in June.)

Pitching numbers will be up tomorrow.