What a lovely night. Aside from the considerations of late-inning drama and opponent, possibly the best Royals game of the year. In a way, at least offensively, it was akin to the way a team like Italy can play in soccer: 88 minutes of ineffectual play but with two minutes of world class brilliance that prove to be the difference.

• This is the kind of start from Greinke we've been dreaming about for... what... five years now? Seven innings plus, with eleven strikeouts and only one walk. Please, everyone, remember nights like this when Greinke is a Cub in two years.
  
• Jose Guillen was brutal afield, but made up for it with a much needed home run in the first. Sure, he struck out his next two times up, but who keeps track of things like that.
• Alex Gordon homered. Against a lefty. Cool. Perhaps it was being in the House That Eric Chavez Sometimes Inhabits that motivated him to conquer his platoon demons. Who knows...
  
• No strikeouts from Soria in the 9th, but another effortless display nonetheless. Although I remain in favor of converting him to starterdom, should that happen I'm going to miss his ninth inning performances. He's like, to use a Bill Simmons-ism, reading Bill Simmons pre-2004.
  

When was the last time Greinke allowed so many runs in such a short time, and the longball wasn't really an issue?

Some of the singles parade in the first inning was a bit fluky, but the plunking of Quentin and the three walks bespoke a general wildness as the underlying root of the problem.

• Kudos to Billy Butler on a mini-breakout game. I didn't think Billy would be at 3 homers at this point, but there's still plenty of time for him to put up, ohh, I dunno... Teahen numbers.
• I'm not sure Jimmy Gobble, absolutely one of my favorite Royals, is a Major League pitcher at this point. Gobble went walk, HBP, walk in the 6th inning, helping to extend Chicago's lead.
• Can't... escape... the presence of Ross Gload. He's like the presence of the sun in the east each morning. He's inexorable. Heading into tonight's game, Gload was 13th amongst AL 1Bs in plate appearances with 255... and 22nd in VORP.

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.

The Royals went 10-19 in May, thanks in large part to an offense that was among the worst in the American League. The pitching staff, after a flaming hot start however, was not blameless either, as Royal hurlers have struggled for well over a month now. While overall the team's pitching numbers have been trending downward for a long time, the Royals nevertheless posted a slightly better monthly ERA in May (4.41) than they did in April (4.78).

Before looking at the May splits, it's worthwhile to take a look at the starter/bullpen breakdowns for the entire season.

There's a lot to digest there, and I didn't even include K/9 or HR data, for the sake of clarity. First, it looks like the starters are getting killed by BAA (bad defense?) because their control of the strikezone is surprisingly good, second-best in the AL in fact, behind only Oakland. The bullpen's K/BB number is also good, although only fourth best in the league, but they've also allowed fewer hits, contributing to a better ERA. Second, I'm stunned to see that the best Royal bullpen in decades has already fallen behind league average, a shocking development that does not reflect well on Trey Hillman's usage patterns, considering the number of good options he has to work with. Bullpen management is perhaps the area in which the manager has the most impact on a team's performance, and to this point, it would be hard to say that Hillman has done well there. In Hillman's defense (somewhat), the bullpen has been hit hard by the longball (18 allowed, fourth most in the league). Overall, the Royals rank 6th in strikeouts, rarefied air for a franchise that has spent most of the decade finishing somewhere between 12th and 14th, year after year.

Before we head-off to the land of individual performance (great wines there, by the way, but the roads are terrible) let's take a look at the staff numbers month by month:

Again, since the beginning of April was so superb, I don't think anyone would guess that actually, the pitching improved across the board in May. One final note on the overall pitching numbers: the Royals have only allowed 10 unearned runs, which is one of the lowest totals in the AL. This either means the Royals have been lucky in how they've timed their errors or that the staff has actually been a tick better than some AL staffs who have hidden lots of bad pitching behind "unearned" runs. The Twins for instance, have allowed over 30 invisible runs, at least in terms of ERA.

Here are the May numbers for the starters, sorted by innings pitched:

Gil Meche put in a very quiet, effective May, truly anchoring the staff, but his gains were offset by meltdowns by Bannister (although his nice Sunday start is obviously not in these numbers) and Tomko. Hochevar and Greinke were so-so, although I'm not quite sure how Greinke allowed so many runs, in spite of a lowish WHIP and decent strikeout numbers. Also, take a look at Banny's numbers: he's been striking out more guys than the mythology around him (and his detractors) would suggest. It's not as if he's 2004 Jimmy Gobble or anything.

And about that guy Gobble, here are the May reliever numbers, sorted again by IP:

Wow, four homers allowed by Peralta, eh!?!? Was anybody expecting to see Ramirez's May ERA that high? Like a few staff pitchers, his overall ERA still looks low, because he logged all those 0.00 ERA innings to start the season. It's fairly clear that Ramirez torpedoed the pen this month, and the sooner Hillman realizes the league may be catching up to him, the better. Likewise, did anyone notice that Yabuta had a decent month? Or that Nunez, whom I sorta thought was fading -- posted a 0.84 ERA in May?

Baseball Prospectus keeps a stat called Leverage, which keeps track of how important the situations a reliever's usage have occurred in. Guess which reliever has the highest leverage score in Hillman's pen? Brett Tomko, of course. As for more used relievers, the leverage rankings go like this: Nunez, Soria, Ramirez, Mahay, Gobble, Nomo, Peralta, Yabuta and Musser. Ideally, at the end of the season, we'll see Soria #1 (not third) and possibly Mahay higher in the chain.  For what it's worth, according to BP's numbers Yabuta, Gobble, Tomko and Peralta have all been below average relievers, and Tomko & Peralta have also been below replacement level. Oh, and Nomo, of course, but he's gone.

Lastly, a word about defense. BP's defensive efficiency stat rates the Royals as the 10th best defense in the American League, with a D-Eff of 0.699 , i.e., 69.9% of the balls in play have been turned into outs by the defense. The Rays lead the league at 72%. The Mariners are last at 68.2%. (Again, the closeness of these numbers should tell you something about the essential realities of the game: 30% of balls in play become hits, give or take a percent.) According to the numbers at the Hardball Times, the Royals have the second-worst defense in baseball however, just ahead of the Mariners.

Last night was apparently one hell of a game to miss. I remember, while watching the Celtics-Pistons post-game, seeing the final score on the ESPN Bottomline and saying something to the effect of "that stinks." It looked like it had turned out to be a close slugfest, one that, given it went into extra innings, could have gone either way. It was only when "KC Greinke - 8.1 IP, 3 ER" scrolled across the bottom of the screen that I began to suspect that it had been a painful loss, and even then I really didn't know until I checked the box score this morning. ESPN, as everyone here knows, would prefer to show the Red Sox failing to hit Erik Bedard all night than show Twins-Royals highlights. However, I think that might be a good thing in this particular case. Anyhow, the "earned run" tag meant I had no idea exactly how much the Royals had been leading by going into the ninth. Of course, that Greinke was still in the game indicated that they had been leading, and so my first thought was that Soria had actually had a bit of a meltdown.

Of course, that's not the way it went. You all know as well as I know what happened in the ninth inning last night, with Ramon Ramirez getting singled out of the game and giving way to the now-thoroughly dejected Joel Peralta.

One thing that would not change this night, though, was the despair felt by Peralta -- not for himself, he said, but because he let his teammates down.

"I won't sleep tonight, for sure," he said.

Yes, that definitely sound like a pitcher who gave two home runs in the span of three betters to heavily contribute to what I have little doubt will be the Royals most memorable loss of the year. I should make it clear I'm not attempting to get everyone blaming manager Trey Hillman rather than Peralta by evoking pathos, as I find it hard to blame Hillman for Peralta not being able to get Craig Monroe out. Really, with Nunez now hurting, and with Soria having pitched two games in a row, the decision last night came down to Mahay, Peralta, Yabuta, or keeping Ramon Ramirez in the game. Ramirez wasn't pitching well, so it's easy to see why Hillman turned elsewhere. Yabuta has a 6.00 ERA with no good peripherals. Craig Monroe historically hits lefties better than righties, to the tune of more power and a better OBP. Ron Mahay is left-handed, so assuming Soria wasn't ready to go, Peralta was left as the best choice for a high leverage situation. He blew it, he knows, let's move on.

We've already discussed this game at length, anyway. I'm just pointing this out because I've been critical of Trey, and others here have been a lot more critical of our fearless leader, but I don't think he takes the fall for the ninth inning. You can, as loyal2sdad pointed out, make an argument that Hillman should have just pitched either Peralta or Ramirez through the whole inning. You can also wonder why Greinke was allowed to start the inning with such a high pitch count and a 5-run lead. But either way, it's speculation that really isn't an indictment of the moves that were really made. If we all want something to complain about in regard to Hillman, it's much more debatable whether Peralta should have remained in to pitch to Justin Morneau with Mahay on the roster. Or the Gload in the outfield thing.

But I didn't write this whole thing to bury Hillman anyway. I didn't write to praise him either, because this entire team is in a funk that you usually only see once a year. If you want the bare bones consolation, we will probably go the entire year without the Royals ever playing this badly for this long. Feel better? Yeah, me neither. Maybe I'll just shut up about last night and get to the stuff I really wanted to touch on.

Notes on the Red Sox-Royals Series

Thanks to the heroic intervention of the MLB Extra Innings package, very soon I'll have the opportunity to follow more KC games without having to enlist the highlight reels and gameday. However, the four game set between the Red Sox and the Royals allowed me for the first time this year to actually see more than one Royals game in a row. It was pretty cool despite the obviously disappointing results. And yes, they were disappointing. Those of you who have been on this blog for awhile are well aware of my "split loyalties," but I was really hoping that the series would be a split so both "my teams" could have their moments. Well, I suppose I don't feel that bad that the Red Sox kind of beat up the Royals now that the Royals are getting beat up by everyone, if that makes sense to anyone. Anyhow, I have other places to go in this article, so onto the stuff that I jotted down during the series:

1. The improvements that Alex Gordon has made over last year were evident through the entire series, during which he was one of the few Royals offensive players who distinguished themselves. He looked more patient, more comfortable, and more disciplined than when I got to see him play last year.
2. Gil Meche looked as if he was starting to get turned around, K'ing 9 over seven innings and taking the hard luck loss in the second game of the series. Say what you will about the opposing points of view in the field of pitch count general pitcher workload research, but I think that poor Meche was suffering from a 200-inning, high-pitch count hangover that seems to finally be clearing up. It's like that time where I drank Ice 101 during finals week and didn't begin to function until approximately 2 PM the next morning. My god, that stuff is evil. Thanks to my friend Buddy, who recommended taking more shots of it than were necessary.
3. Joakim Soria - great man, or greatest man? Even though Soria only appeared in one game...and stuggled with his control...in the rain, I could still see the awesome stuff that he has. I was sitting next to a rather skeptical Red Sox fan during his outing, who made fun of me for saying that Soria had great control because Joakim walked two people in the rain. I had a good chuckle when Soria escaped the jam and then Mike Timlin struggled with his control and walked one in the rain on his way to creating his own save situation in the ninth. Funny stuff.
4. Contrary to whenever I saw him in the "highlights" earlier in the year, Jose Guillen had his timing down and more closely resembled the decent power hitter he's been in the past. You know this, but the difference was clearly visible.
5. Brett Tomko is not a victim of bad luck when it comes to his hittablility. After seeing his stuff, I don't think he's got enough to keep his BABIP at league average. I just bring this up because, other than his H/9, he looks like he is underperforming his peripheral numbers. After seeing how mediocre his stuff is, I don't think he's playing by the "normal" .290-.300 BABIP rule.
6. Billy Butler is sitting too far back in his stance, and almost never seems to get his weight forward into his swings. I know I'm not a scout, but it's odd to see a man that muscular trying to fight off pitch after pitch. In any case, he's a data point against the pitching coach. He looked completely lost in the Sox-Royals series.
7. Ross Gload is done. He doesn't look capable of hitting major league pitching. His numbers are terrible, and he's older than you think.
8. Leo Nunez and Ramon Ramirez both looked impressive in their outings. It's hard to believe that Nunez has come full circle and become a very good reliever, but he has. Ramirez looks like a good find, as if you look at his line in 2006 he was quite good before getting hurt last year.

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On Saturday night the news broke that the Royals had signed Joakim Soria had signed a contract keeping him in Kansas City possibly through 2014. According to Bob Dutton, Soria will earn eight million dollars through 2011, then a series of escalators and options begin to come into play, potentially raising the value of the contract to over $30 million. Last night, Royals Review discussed the contract with site contributors NyRoyal and NHZ over pork chops and cheddar mashed potatoes at the site headquarters (Eastern Region) in Wilmington Delaware.

Royals Review: What are your overall, initial, reactions?

NYRoyal: I'm very happy with this contract extension. The two guys I'd most like for the Royals to extend this year are Soria and Greinke. One is out of the way. It is a good, long contract which eats up some free agency years. And the risk to the Royals is pretty small because of the club options. I think it is a fair deal. It guarantees some good money for Soria and it keeps him on the team long-term. The deal shares both benefits and risk between Soria and the team. If Soria is a good pitcher throughout the contract term, it gives him a little less money than he'd otherwise get. If Soria busts, then he gets much more. In short, it is a fair, smart deal.

NHZ: Well, GMDM just successfully locked up one the best relief pitchers in baseball to a thoroughly reasonable guaranteed deal, and at the same time set what we all hope is a new precedent for the way the Royals will deal with the good young players that come up through the organization. In their recent history, the Royals have had trouble hanging onto this type of player. Carlos Beltran is the best example of this, the one that pops into everyone's heads. Also, when they finally did lock up one of their homegrown stars...it was Mike Sweeney. Now Mike Sweeney is an awesome guy, but we are know how that ended up playing out. Also, I think it generally creates some friction between players and the FO when a player has to go all the way thorough to arbitration to decide his contract figure. Moore has completely eliminated any problem he could have potentially had with Soria in that respect.

For my money, it is very encouraging that we've finally seen one of the new guard of the Royals locked long term. It really is one of the measures of a how well run small-to-middle market team. It's one thing to produce a good young player, but it's another step entirely to lock said players up at a reasonable level financially that will give the Royals enough flexibility to have the money to put into other needy areas. With the low guaranteed price tag here of 8.75 million over three years, the Royals have bought out arbitration years without having to worry about being hamstrung by a large contract.

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The most anticipated Royals season since 2004 begins, weather permitting, tomorrow afternoon in Detroit. The odd thing is, while almost everyone is excited about 2008, no one seems too hopeful that the Royals can actually compete, just yet. It's an odd dynamic that speaks to some long-term faith in Dayton Moore and the young players on the roster, as well as the extremely low expectations of a beaten down fanbase. This tenuously balanced bit of patient optimism could make the 2008 campaign something like a leisurely pleasure cruise, with random individual performances and patches of good play appearing like spots of scenery -- oh, look, there's a great start by Greinke, oh neat, we swept the Twins this weekend -- or it might evaporate quickly, as the on-field product pales in comparison to the way it appeared in the ballfields of the mind this off-season.

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    The Royals are considered by most to be a team in rebuilding mode right now. I'm sure that there are those who disagree with that idea; those who believe the Royals will never win the world series, or those who have already lost faith in Dayton Moore's ability. But the fact remains that most of those who actually care look at the team and see a real rebuilding program, one that was not really seen during the Baird era. Naturally, we're all inclined to see this is as a positive thing. Really and truly, it is nice to see the franchise have some direction. However, looking towards 2008 the near future of the Kansas City Royals, there are some things that are bound to make you slightly nervous. I am not talking about some "anything can go wrong" feeling, I'm thinking more specifically on this one. And do not mistake this for a condemnation of the Royals future chances, because it's anything but that. I am not a negative person, I think, when it comes to what I think the Royals can accomplish in the next three years.

    One of the other teams that I follow throughout the season and the off-season is the Baltimore Orioles. I am, as I'm sure you all know by now, a Red Sox fan tried-and-true, but I was born in Maryland, deep in Oriole country, and I remember the O's from the days when Cal Ripken, Mike Mussina, Chris Hoiles, and other heroes of my single digit years played. I vaguely remember the change over from good old beer-conducive Memorial Stadium to the white wine park of Camden Yards. So if you're wondering what a Red Sox fan cares about the fortunes of the Orioles, that's the reason right there. I think that if you're such a fanatical baseball fan like me, you don't forget the team you saw the first time you went to a ballpark, or the team you saw on TV almost everyday.

    The relevance of the Orioles to this discussion is this: we, the Royals, are not the Orioles. We're surely both rebuilding teams, and we certainly both lost 90+ games last year. We've both got some good young players that provide hope for the future of the franchise. With the exception of the Royals' blip in 2003, these are both franchises that have fallen on hard times. Now, it looks like things are starting to turn around for both franchises, as the rebuilding programs seem real for both teams. But again, the Royals are not the Orioles, and not in the same situation. The Orioles, with the trades of Miguel Tejada and Erik Bedard (as soon as it goes through), have officially blown up the team that wasn't winning and are attempting to start again with the prospects they're getting from those deals, a few good internally developed prospects, and hopefully without the old guard that remains signed on for a couple more seasons. That's a rebuilding program in year one, really, and while the prospects might turn out to bring the O's back to relevance faster than one might think, there's really not much of a timetable on said program. After years of Angelos preventing any real direction for that franchise, the presence of an actual plan should have them giddy.

    The Royals are further along in their own plan, and that's the thing that has to make you nervous if you've been following this team for any length of time. I'm, of course, not the best person to gauge Royals' fans feelings about their team beyond those who post on this blog and by looking at the K's attendance records, but this is a team that's been directionless and wallowing in underachievers for quite a while. Now that Moore has come in and put his stamp on the team--yes, I'm well aware that some players on the team are Baird's--and there's actually progress being made, hope springs again. This upcoming year is one where people have reason to be optimistic, with the power of optimism comes the possibility of disappointment. This is not just a team that is relying on prospects to rebuild from the ground up, this is a franchise that has significant assets committed to veteran players who--as with us all--will not be around forever. Whatever your opinion on the subject, Dayton Moore and the Royals FO have signaled that Kansas City is close to contention. The first big signing, that of Gil Meche to a contract that looked ridiculous at the time, was successful. The signing that made headlines this off-season was the apparently-cranky Jose Guillen being inked to a multi-year deal. These are, of course, not the only deals made by Moore and to suggest otherwise would be to sell him short. However, it's time to realize that if the value gained by pouring millions into Meche and now Guillen is actually to be used, the Royals need to be a real, live, contending team very soon. Where "very soon"  means "by 2010."
   

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Greinke Watch: Apparently, Jay Jaffe has been reading Royals Review too. In the latest edition of the Baseball Prospectus Hit-List, which ranked the Royals as the 30th best team in baseball, Jaffe wrote:

Given Zack Greinke's struggles (9.90 ERA since June 1, 6.09 overall, to go with a 1-10 record), it's fair to ask whether the team would be better off sending their brightest hope to Omaha to escape the brutality and perhaps conserve some service time while shoring up his confidence.

Frankly, would it be the end of the world if Greinke's million-dollar, young as hell arm, was actually rested for a couple weeks, maybe a month? He's been pretty injury-free thus far, which has been in part a testament to the Royals smart limiting of his pitch count. However, he's also never gotten an extended break due to some freak hang-nail injury or somesuch. On the whole, I just don't see the point of relentlessly sending Greinke out there. But then again, I haven't seen it for two months.

Attendance: Through 40 home dates, the Royals have averaged 19,196 patrons at the K, good for the 29th among ML clubs. The extinction of the Expos has meant that the Royals and Devil Rays are seemingly destined to spend the next decade fighting one another hand-to-hand each season for the Worst Attendance Crown, although the Marlins, Pirates, Indians and Tigers are always strong clubs as well. The Devil Rays have completely dropped off the earth this season, averaging only 13,466 to date. Surprisingly, Cleveland's not doing too much better than the Royals, pulling in only 22,110 a game, despite a) a better team, b) a supposedly newer, better ballpark and c) the long-cherished notion of Cleveland as a revived baseball town... I'm not seeing it.

Bell: Buddy Bell is now 13-18 as the Royals' Manager.

Former Royal Update: Hmm... where to begin? Lets just go with the big names.

Johnny Damon is doing quite well, hitting .338/.381/.471, while Carlos Beltran is doing his best John Buck impersonation in New York, hitting .266/.323/.431. Jermaine Dye never quite became what it briefly looked like he could, but his power is creeping back, hitting .269/.326/.526 with 18 bombs. Raul Ibanez is still doing OK in Seattle, posting a .294/.357/.475 line while playing alot of first base. Finally, Joe Randa's proving that he can still hang around on a major league roster, hitting .296/.367/.496. I'm shocked that Randa's plate discipline has now out-paced Mike Sweeney's. Never would have guessed that in 2001.