Make it number eight in a row, as the Royals lose another tough game in Minnesota. Despite -- cough, cough -- not drawing a single walk, the Royals had about the best offensive night an offense of their type can have (10 singles, 3 doubles, 1 homer) and still lost. DeJesus and Berroa threw up an 0-9 effort at the top of the order, ruining a solid performance by just about everyone else in the lineup. Ohh well, it isn't like anyone is surprised.
Its nights like this one that make this team on 53-109 pace, and once again the scattered and humiliated Royals fan-base looks to Buddy Bell for answers. Not that he has them.
J.P. Howell had another tough day (3.1 Ip, 6H, 5ER, 4BB, 1K) leading people to consider asking why exactly he's on the team, but only before they pause and determine the question isn't worth asking. Didn't we already play that game with Calvin Pickering, only in reverse? The Royals seem hell-bent on conducting what Rob Neyer called a "grand experiment" centered around, essentially, not having a functioning minor league system. Anyone of any value is sent to KC as quickly as possible, usually from the AA Wichita squad, while AAA Omaha is used for roster castoffs and injury insurance. The problem with having Howell with the big club boils down to a simple question: why? What is anyone gaining by this experience? Allard et all seemed convinced that either a) their minor league instruction is terrible to the point of being detrimental or b) the talent level of the Royals is so bad that the bottom line is best served by wasting Greinke/Howell/Costa/Burgos/whomeever's service time so that the team losses 109 games instead of 120.
So basically, not a happy time.