Payback's a bitch.
In mid-July (17-19) the Royals endured one of their most frustrating series (serii ?) of the season, a three-game sweep in Fenway. The Royals lost all three games by one run and watched as the Red Sox showed no respect for their opponent and the game after a flukish David Ortiz stolen base during the first game. To make matters worse, the Royals made history as only they can, losing 1-0 in back-to-back games, which hadn't happened in Fenway in like 600 years or somesuch.
Well, as Boston now looks up at a retooled Yankees team in the standings, playing spoiler with a 6-4 win couldn't be sweeter. While the supposedly old school Buddisimo never made any reaction (verbally or bean-ballilly) about the Ortiz steal and in-game snuzzle-fest, those of us who crave revenge got some satisfaction tonight at the K.
At some point, its just not worth it to analyze Buddy Bell's nightly lineup choices. The fact that Mark Teahen can be a #3 hitter one night and a #5 or a #7 the next betrays a warped understanding of his abilities (or a pyschotic one) in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter. Plus, the great thing about being truly random is that there's always the potential for something positive to sneak into the undesign in the unprocess. So tonight, we had Sweeney #3, an essentially dead Reggie Sanders hitting cleanup and Ryan Shealy batting 7th.
I know batting average is very 20th century, but a lineup that features a #3 hitting .183 and a #4 at .238 is almost doing everything in its power not to score runs.
But we digress...
The Royals milked another good start out of the pitching stone that is Luke Hudson, who danced around 8 hits and 2 walks (with only 1 K) to allow only 3 earned runs. For the next three innings, only Joel Peralta was very good, but beyond Gobble's failure, Joe Nelson and A' Burgos held down the fort despite some shaky control. Limiting Boston to 4 runs is a victory and in the last three Royals-Sawks games, the Red Sox have scored only 6 runs.
Has anyone else noticed that Emil Brown is just killing the ball? I certainly hadn't, but he's slapped two hits in each of his last four games, and has raised his average from .276 to .287. Thats quite a feat after 100 games. Brown's homer in the 7th made the last two innings a little less stressful, and rightfully earned him Boyfriend of the Day Status.
Lastly, on Sweeney, I'm glad to see him back. Prior to tonight's game, he'd only had one multi-walk game this season (an incredible 4-walk game against the Twins on April 25).