Over forty games behind the uninspiring (at least at this point) White Sox, our Royals contine to slog through a September devoid of both short and long term interest. There's no good reason to have faith in any young Royal prospect at this point, and its sorta a mute point anyway, considering their general lack of playing time. At some point in the last two seasons, Berroa, Buck, Teahen and Greinke all looked like player with whom the team might build around. Now they just look like bad baseball players who, aside from Greinke, might not even be in baseball in a few years.
Think thats extreme? Need I mention Carlos Feebles?
So here we are. The strange part has been the emergence of an actually viable Royals' offense this month, good for 59 runs, second most in baseball. As a team, the Royals are hitting .312/.375/.458 on the month, which translates into, "this can't be sustained". Still, our boys are cranking out singles with the best of 'em, and augmenting the singles with the occasional walk and/or double. There isn't a problem with a batting average driven attack per se, only that BA tends to fluctuate at the individual and aggregate level quite wildly, while power and walks tend to stay stable.
Clearly, the present example of the Royals demonstrates this well enough to preclude further discussion.
Since this is the Royals were talking about, just as the offense has asserted its radical claim of adequacy, the pitching staff has thrown up a 5.48 ERA month, good for 28th best in baseball. The strikeouts remain sparse, the hits allowed keep coming, alongside their brother in arms the walk-allowed. Did I mention the 17 home runs allowed? Well, look at it this way: two teams have been worse.
As individuals, Aaron Guiel has keyed the Royal attack with a .438/.514/.719 line, followed closely by the efforts of Matt Stairs at .417/.517/.538. Hell, Denny Hocking and Mark Teahen are managing batting-average driven 1.033 and .927 OPSs respectively.
Thanks to a two homer two weeks, Emil Brown, Angel Berroa and (gasp) John Buck also continue to flirt with viability, but I fully Berroa and Buck to be back below .700 OPSs for the month, by the end of the month.
Have we reached the point when it's better to root against Angel Berroa? Theres always the miraclulous/hopeful view, that he'll somehow become a positive asset again, although at his age he's not that far from the downslope either. The guy is 27. Ehh... and he's only barely capable of manning SS at this point either... One hell of a battle between him and Teahen for that 3rd base job coming up over the next few years, no?