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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."

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.

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?

If you're the Mariners, you gotta look in the mirror after this one and ask yourself what you're made of. The Royals threw their two worst pitchers at them in Ponson and Ramirez, and they were still shut down. They should be glad that Trey Hillman didn't throw Kyle Farnsworth out there for further humiliation. Oh wait...

mellinger: Trey Hillman is riding a unicycle on the warning track at the K right now. I wonder if he can juggle

"Horacio was much, much better," Royals manager Trey Hillman said. "If we'd played clean baseball behind him, he gets out of his three innings in about 35 pitches. He was outstanding today."

So what’s Moore’s solution? To trade for a first baseman with a .299 OBP. There were 29 players this season who batted at least 300 times and played at least half their games at first base. Only two of them had a lower OBP than Ross Gload’s .317. One was John Bowker, rookie first baseman for the Giants, who had a .300 OBP. The other – with the lowest OBP of any first baseman in the game – was Jacobs. That’s right: Moore has managed to find a first baseman that actually reached base less often than Ross Gload. And he’s willing to give up talent to get him.

"Jose Guillen was pinch-hitting for…Alex Gordon.

Alex Gordon, who’s hitting .280/.365/.492 against right-handed pitching.

Gordon, who’s just a tick behind David DeJesus as the best hitter on the team against right-handers.

With Guillen, who’s hitting .257/.275/.420 against RHP.

I dare say it’s unusual to deliberately give up the platoon advantage when pinch-hitting in any situation, unless the batter is a pitcher or his dad used to manage the club but quit in the middle of the night or something. But to pinch-hit for one of your best hitters in a key situation and surrender the platoon advantage at the same time…I’m sorry, but this doesn’t add up.

I suspect there is more to the story here. After the game Hillman said, "I didn’t really like the way Alex was swinging the bat today." O-kay. If you say so, Trey. Gordon walked in the first inning. He struck out in the third inning – both those at-bats against a left-hander, and we all know Gordon has had trouble against left-handers this year. Against Carrasco in the fifth, he hit a soft line drive that Cabrera caught – not a screaming line drive, but certainly one that would have gotten through for a hit had it been placed better. Miguel Olivo, to that point, had a worse game than Gordon – and he’s garbage against right-handed hitters. But for some reason Hillman decided that Gordon was the problem.

There has to be more to the story here. Maybe Gordon wasn't showing enough effort, or he was insubordinate, or he made a pass at one of Hillman’s relatives. But somehow he has gotten on Hillman’s bad side. That’s the only explanation that makes sense here. Whatever the explanation is, it’s not good for Royals fans. Either we have yet another clubhouse crisis that needs to be defused, or our manager is just astonishingly stupid. There’s no way to spin this as a positive going forward.

But today, it was brilliant. Rarely in the annals of Royals history has such a clearly bad move played a more significant role in helping the Royals win."

Anyone else notice Rany trying to one-up RR with "Hillball?" How weak is that? We all know the proper term is "Treyball." As in, "Love that Treyball," or "*&&^% Treyball, we want COSTA NOW!"