A few thoughts on the Royals 66th win:

1. Guillen looks pretty healthy to me now.  He appears to be running the bases and in the field with significantly more speed.  I think his hip is feeling much better.  And does this have anything to do the fact that he's on a hot streak again?  Before tonight's game:

Last 14 days - .389/.411/.611/1.022

Last 28 days - .310/.333/.500/.833

2. Yeah, I think Mark Teahen can play LF just fine.  He made two really good out of zone catches, showing great range.  I have no idea why he was in LF though, with Guillen in RF.

3. So how does a trade of a two-month rental of Dotel for Kyle Davies look right now?  No, Davies won't be throwing eight shutout innings very often, but he sure does look like a decent #5 starter or a good long reliever right now.  Looks like a good pick up to me.  Wladimir Balentien update: .203/.254/.349 (212 AB's)

The State of the Battle

Despite the Royals stealing away beloved ex-Mariner Gil Meche prior to the 2007 season, the Mariners have been the stronger side in recent years. The Royals went 3-5 against the M's in '06, 3-6 in '07 and are only 1-1 against the coffeekind this season. Thanks to their success, the Mariner hordes have pushed eastward into Thermopolis and now claim most of, if not all, of Hot Springs County, Wyoming, the historical flash point between both sides. According to all observers, the Royals are losing ground daily, and are the weakest they've been in Wyoming in years. Using both human intelligence and satellite data, Royals Review was able to construct this map.

People are dying right now in Central Wyoming.

Fremont, Natrona and Converse counties are not fun places to be right now, especially for Royals loyalists. Johnson County, always susceptible, due to a large number of flannel outlets, was one of the first battleground counties to fall, and in fact, may remain in Seattle's hands for a generation. Crucially, we know that the teal and silver are in country in northwest Albany County, the last buffer between Seattle and the Capital. We believe this territory is safe at the moment thanks in large part to a shipment of Mike Aviles jersies that arrive via helicopter late last week.

With a strong showing this weekend, it is believed that the Royals will be able to quickly recapture Carbon County's valuable mineral deposits, which have been critical in feeding injured pitcher John Bale. Natrona County, featuring Casper, is a top priority for the Royals, but may not be salvageable in the short term. Vaguely metropolitan, Casper's citizens have embraced the Mariner lifestyle and are believed to be harboring exiled leader Bill Bavasi.

Looking Ahead

While years of failure have led to a large loss of territory, the near-term prospects are not entirely bleak. In their arrogance the Mariners have declined to establish any radio affiliates in Wyoming, refusing to take the advantage of the opportunity left when the Royals lost their crucial Sundance station. Moreover, with the Mariners currently mired in last place and the owners of a 36-56 record, it is probable that large pockets of Mariner support are much more vulnerable than they superficially appear. Stealing Meche remains a valauble propaganda plank and has been recently augmented by the seduction of conversion Horacio Ramirez.. All efforts will be made to insure that Raul Ibanez -- preternaturally a fence-sitter in this fight -- does not leave with the Mariners this weekend. Finally, a well-placed tactical linedrive off the elbow of white hero Willie Bloomquist this weekend may severely undercut the allegiance of leaners across central Wyoming.

Problematically however, with opportunity also comes pressure. With all seven remaining skirmishes set to take place in Kansas City, a Royal failure to maximize results against a bleeding Mariner squad may not result in additional lost territory directly, but could nevertheless represent a substantial loss in opportunity cost. Kyle Davies is reportedly already emotionally distraught over the responsibility riding on his shoulders with Sunday's start, and it is likely that many of his teammates feel the same way as well.

First, the numbers from Hiram's first four starts with the Royals this season:

While Davies walked as many men as he struck out (12 each) over his first four starts, he found success thanks to a low BAA and a clean slate regarding home runs. He wasn't terribly efficient (Gil meet Hiram) with his pitch count until, roughly, his fourth start, when he went seven strong against the Cardinals, and needed only 106 pitches to do so. By way of comparison, he hit 100 pitches exactly in his first start of the season against the Indians. In five innings.

Now, the data from his last two starts:

You don't need to have Buzz Bissinger's impeccable integrity and wisdom to see that when your BAA rises from .256 to .371, your ERA is going to explode proportionally. In his last two starts Davies was more or less the same guy: not many walks or strikeouts. Only against the Giants and Cardinals (a second time) more balls found grass.

What's interesting is his performance this season, both good and bad, goes against what Davies has always been: a great stuff guy with control issues (you've probably heard that before). Last year with the Royals, Davies struck out forty batters in just fifty innings, but still allowed a devil's ERA (6.66) thanks to ten homers allowed and twenty six walks. Some of that high ERA was a bit of bad luck, but wholly in line with his career numbers at the Major League level. This season, he's gone from a JDLR-type to a Brian Bannister-type, and it seems likely that this is reflective of a change in approach.

Here are Hiram's career K/9 numbers:

To this point, although the data isn't without issues, according to one measure, Davies has essentially abandoned his slider, a pitch he threw 14.1% of the time in 2007, but only 1.2% of the time this season. Taking its place has been the Bannyrific change up, which Davies has thrown 21.2% of the time.

Despite the headline, it isn't really a critical start for Davies tonight. I don't think he can have much long term success on the Bannister model (don't think Banny can either, by the way) and I'll be interested to see how he does tonight.

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.