Its always fun to compare the game thread comments during wins and losses. Last night, as Soria zeroed in on his second dominant inning, disparaging remarks regarding the Cardinals started to be made, including the claim that the Royals would likely have a better record than the Redbirds, were they blessed with membership in the NL Central. Since last night, royaldaddy, loyal2sdad, ericconley and dyefan187 have all posted diaries giddy to varying degrees. Here in the early season it seems, we're still small ships bourne upon choppy seas, fully riding waves which over time will grow less dramatic. As we might expect, from a Blue Jay perspective, it was just an ugly loss.
Then again, with Greinke dealing (6 IP, 1 ER) and Soria dominating, maybe we can all let our hair down a little and just unreservedly feel good about things for a little while. Greinke has now struck out 12 to begin the season, against only 1 walk and a mere 14 hits allowed. Soria, Gobble and Duckworth (a very strange grouping, to be sure) have combined for 13.2 scoreless innings. And hey, Jorge de la Rosa (1-0, 1.29 ERA), tonight's starter, is coming off one of the best starts of his career.
As a team, the Royals have struck out 62, the most in the American League. Given the team's performance in recent seasons, this is a stunning development, and certainly one to track in coming weeks. In an interview I recently did, I ripped Pitching Coach Bob McClure pretty hard, so next week I may look like an even bigger jerk than I already am. We'll see.
So about tonight.
Its Rosy against Gustavo Chacin (0-0, 4.50 ERA). The best thing about Chacin is his yahoo sports stock photo, which makes him look, roughly, like a character out of Japanese anime. It sure would be nice to steal a series, no?