Royals Review, a Kansas City Royals community

Looming in the background, of course, is Willie Bloomquist, who played seven different positions and made just 10 errors despite all the switching around. "He's unbelievable. Willie can do all," Hillman said. "Willie's our ace in the hole. He's one of those guys who'll never get the credit he's due."

John Buck is probably the best free agent option now for catcher. I have no idea why the Royals would let him go while picking up the corpse of Jason Kendall. Teams are still convinced that veteran catchers can have value above and beyond the numbers. The search to quantify that still goes on.

A hilarious thing about the movie business is that you can get away with anything as long as you call it "process." Literally, anything. I mean, he's sound asleep! The director is literally sound asleep on set - what the hell's going on here? Well, he's slept through his last three movies, and they were huge hits. It's how he works; that's his "process." He'll wake up at some point and give notes, but for now, let him catch a few Zs. I haven't been in the business that long, but at this point I can't think of a single outrageous behavior that I haven't seen occur on set and then heard excused as someone's process.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with the Braves Way, which (along with the services of three Hall of Fame pitchers) helped Atlanta to 14 division titles. But someone needs to tell Dayton Moore, Dean Taylor, J.J. Picollo, and all the other guys that came over from Atlanta: it’s not 1995 anymore, fellas.... while the rest of baseball is moving forward, the Braves Way seems bent on proving that you can still win with scouts alone. It’s not a coincidence that the Braves themselves have fallen on hard times the last few years, or that the purest distillation of the Braves Way in a single player, Jeff Francoeur, has turned into, well, Jeff Francoeur.

[Ryan Langerhans is] 29, has about 1200 PA (two full seasons), his career wOBA is .314 (-7 per 150 G), and his UZR at a "neutral" position is +7 per 150 G. That’s a league average performance. MLB average. It’s sad for him that he’s been given a short shrift for so long. Willie Bloomquist, your typical white guy who scratches and claws his way into a lineup, is a barely above replacement level player, who has over 1600 PA in MLB, and has been around since 2002. The difference? He throws with his right hand, which means he gets to play the infield. Mom & Dad, whatever you do, make your son throw with his right hand (and bat with his left). If he insists on throwing with his left hand, make sure he practices his hitting alot or works on his control as a pitcher.

Bruce Chen? Really? In the same season the Royals ran Horacio Ramirez out there? What, was Terrell Wade not available? Jung Bong won't return your calls, Dayton? Aw, don't look at me like that, whaddaya gonna do, ban me or someth----

Trey Hillman has done plenty that's worth questioning -- the above paragraph included -- but no big league manager should even have as an option substituting Hulett for Hernandez for Pena.

The original plan was to put [Horacio] Ramirez adrift in the ocean and let God sort it out, but upon further reflection, the Royals realized that simply releasing Ramirez back into the wild could possibly result in their hitters getting to face him at some point, a shot in the arm that the 13th-ranked Royal offense sorely needs. Also, the MLB CBA does not allow contracts to be assigned in this manner, a clause reinforced when baseball foiled Woody Woodward's plot to have Greg Hibbard garroted at an In-N-Out Burger, his corpse then being deposited into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Shin Soo Choo hit a single off a freakin' seagull in the 10th, driving in the winning run. Learning to play the seagull carom in Progressive Field is one of those things visiting defenders just don't have time to master in a short series. Oh, and now that the memories of the Royals' early-season friskiness have long since passed, can we just get to the end game on Trey Hillman and save everyone a lot of hassle?

For years, people have been wondering what would happen if the Mariners got to play against Willie Ballgame, or Miguel Olivo, or Horacio Ramirez, or a whole team full of Mariner cast-offs. Now we have our answer. The Mariners would get the shit kicked out of them.