More photos » by Charlie Riedel - AP

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What? We came back and picked up a starter who didn't have a great day? Is that legal?

• Luke Hochevar wasn't good today, but wasn't terribad either. The two dingers aren't good for a sinkerballer's ERA, but Hooch got nine groundouts against four flyouts today. He also K'ed three, which he's going to need to start to do more often. While you have to wonder how much better Luke's ERA would be if the Royals fielded a real-live major league defense, less than 4 K/9 is too low to expect much success. Call it the Jeremy Sowers principle, if you want.

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More photos » by ED ZURGA - AP

3 days ago: Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Bruce Chen throws in the first inning of a baseball game against the Chicago White Sox Thursday, July 2, 2009, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Ed Zurga)

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It's all just a quirk of sports, I guess. A quirk of baseball.

• 5 singles, a double, no walks. Party like it's 2005.
• Willie Bloomquist -- he just plays the game the right way -- and Mark Teahen were thrown out at first base from the outfield.
  
• The shame of it was, the Royals got a perfectly acceptable start from Bruce Chen. Chen's start won't be immortalized in stone, but he went 6 innings, scattering 5 hits and a walk against 5 strikeouts. And so, we can now say it, Bruce Chen has provided depth this season. One more OK start, and the minor league contract he received has fully worked out. The difference between Chen and guys like Ho-Ram and Ponson? I don't know.
• Less than 18,000 tonight at the K for this game. The Royals are currently averaging 23,700 per game, good for 23rd best in the game. I wonder how attendance will do as the season continues.

From Rany's blog:

Just to be clear here, since I think everyone's taking my words a little too literally: I don't think I've been "banned" in the sense that they're going to have security guards outside the stadium making sure that I don't buy a ticket. It does mean that the Royals have cut off any access I may have from the team for my radio show, and - this is critical - have intimated that any other radio show which has me on as a guest faces the same penalty.

I see this as the equivalent of having my media credentials taken away, except of course that I don't have media credentials, and the Royals have made it clear they don't give media credentials to bloggers.)

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Here on media relations day in the Royals blogosphere...

Last night, I characterized Joe's blog post on the Royals offense as "cowardly". In particular, I took issue with the post's conclusion/non-conclusion:

And it all comes back to the beginning: The Royals execs are smart people. But the more they do to this offense, the worse this offense gets. The more they hope for things to work out, the less likely it seems that things DO work out. It’s a quirk of baseball — a quirk of sports. I remember talking to an executive once who told me that if you get a left fielder who is a little better than the one you have, a centerfielder who is a little better, a right fielder who is a little better, and so on, you should be a better team. Well … maybe and maybe not. Two plus two does not always equal four in team sports. Sometimes, it equals P4. Sometimes it equals 4-6-3. And sometimes, it just equals another lost year.

Multiple readers have suggested that Joe wasn't being cowardly, but that this was in fact gentle criticism or possibly some kind of ironic handling on his part or a deft way of begging the question. As such, he wasn't being cowardly, he was being clever. If you hold this reading, then my little mini-shot at the illustrious Joe wasn't just wrong and inaccurate, it was itself ironically backwards. He was really giving it to 'em!

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• Don't worry about the dead arm concerns or the pitch count, suggests Dutton's game story. Everything will be fine, he's "quelled concerns" and is back to his "old self". As a bonus, there's also a nice number of quotes from St. Willie about the offense's struggles.
• Bad, bad, bad offense | Mellinger's Blog on the Royals and Baseball (TPJ content)
  
• A commenter on Mellinger's blog calls out the KC Media: Trey, one more time | Mellinger's Blog on the Royals
  For years you guys have avoided criticizing a franchise run horribly wrong. You keep finding ways to apologize and excuse Hillman and you can't really identify anything he's doing right.
  
• Oh, and what a coincidence. Here's a long Poz/JoePo post talking about how the offense has declined the last three seasons (funny, I've heard someone else say something about that FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS) only Poz concludes by just saying, "well isn't that funny" or something to that effect. Well, and he also says how smart Dayton Moore is about six times. The quote below might be one of the most cowardly things I've ever read, and I'm someone who reads a pretty wimpy reading list:
  

The Royals execs are smart people. But the more they do to this offense, the worse this offense gets. The more they hope for things to work out, the less likely it seems that things DO work out. It’s a quirk of baseball — a quirk of sports.

Yes, yes, it's just a funny little quirk.

Many more links, including the always relevant Braves/Frenchy updates after the jump:

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More photos » by Ed Zurga - AP

4 days ago: Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Gil Meche throws in the first inning of a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday, July 1, 2009, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Ed Zurga)

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Gil Meche, after a week (or month-long depending on your view) saga surrounding his health, soreness, and fatigue, threw 121 pitches today. Why?

Now, I don't think it's necessarily the end of the world or anything like that, but still, what was the point? The Royals trailed 2-0 to start the inning, and considering how early it still was in the game, it wasn't as if another inning from Meche meant the Royals could go straight to Soria, or even Cruz + Soria.

Forget the last inning. What was gained by starting Meche today? Since at least last season's trade deadline (when basically nothing happened) this organization has operated as if they were trying to contend as soon as possible. That mindset continues to harm the long-term prospects of the team. I have no doubt that Hillman looked Gil in the eyes and saw his shining man soul and knew that he could handle anything, but still... what... was... the... point?

We've heard rumblings of pain and discomfort for weeks now. Rumblings that have bubbled to the surface despite Meche's counter-productive machismo.

I guess defeating Cleveland for fourth place is really important.

I'd like to introduce a new phrase: The Hopelessness Era. What's that you ask? The Hopelessness Era is the period which began in 2004, when we all stopped believing in the Royals, right after the 2003 bubble burst. In 2004, when it became evident that the Royals were still very very far away, how did you think they'd be in 2009? Is this what you expected? The Royals will close the 00's as the only AL Central team not to make the playoffs this decade and the only team not to win 90 games at least once.

This is a bigger topic than can be properly talked about in one post, but I think that above all else, for me at least, it's increasingly useful to rethink the second-half of this decade as one coherent whole (or an incoherent fail, as it were). A sharp line between the Moore and Baird regimes looks like too much of a convenient fiction to these eyes, a demarcation that by implication gives Moore a little too much credit and fails to note that many of the team's most prominent players remain Baird products. The idea isn't to reclaim Baird, at least not fully, because, after all, it's the Hopelessness Era. If you prefer to, at the very least you must admit that as of now Dayton has proved unable to overcome the failings he inherited. His rebuild has, essentially, reached the Single A level. In a series of posts to come, I hope to explore the reasons why the Royal resurgence that we all hoped for in 2003 never came.

So how do this year's Royals compare to previous teams after 2009?

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More photos » by Ed Zurga - AP

St. Willie was ineffective, which was timely considering the contents of this site pregame. (AP Photo/Ed Zurga)

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Yes, it was the old Scott Baker problem for the Royals, though tonight's game also featured a new angle: the conquering return of Bobby Keppel.

Keppel, a St. Louis product, appeared in eight games for the Royals in 2006, starting six games. The fact that he made six starts signals something unsavory about the state of the Kansas City staff that season, surely. However, Keppel, a failed first round pick with the Mets in 2000, wasn't completely terrible as a Royal either. Through his first 29 innings he still had an ERA around 3.60, before the bottom fell out a little in his last two appearances. He finished with a 5.50 ERA, and essentially revealed himself to be Brian Bannister without the mojo. Of course he's ended up a Twin, they've cornered the market on non-descript white guys with all-American names and generic profiles who find ways to be effective: Scott Baker, Glen Perkins, Nick Blackburn, etc etc. Reading Twins box scores is like stepping back into the world of Franklin W. Dixon.

Keppel had ended up in Minnesota's system, where he was playing alongside Justin Huber in Rochester. He'd only appeared once prior to tonight, but his scoreless 2.1 innings proved to be huge in a tight 2-1 game. Though he'd only thrown eight Major League innings since his random 2006 stint with the Royals, Keppel baffled his old team, and in so doing posted the second highest Twin-WPA of the game, behind Justin Morneau.

If I had to guess, I'd say that Keppel probably feels warmly towards Kansas City, as he picked up more per diem money there than anywhere else. Perhaps it was then a slightly bittersweet performance for him. Perhaps.

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