After rebounding with an impressive showing of Royal Pride on Sunday afternoon at the Cell, the Royals look to maintain their excellence as they open up a four game set in Oakland.
Didn't the Royals just play Oakland? Yes. Didn't Meche just matchup against Dan Haren (3-2, 1.89 ERA) last week? Yes. All a part of the unbalanced/interleague schedule I suppose.
Meche continues to be the story this spring, especially from a national perspective, and for good reason. After last week's no decision (in a game the Royals eventually won) against Oakland, Mechey lowered his ERA to 2.15. While the ERA is aided in part by 7 unearned runs which don't appear on the slate, thanks to great control (14 walks in 54.1 innings) and some good luck on the timing of home runs, Meche currently owns one of the shiniest baseball card stat lines in the American League. Nevertheless, I think for many hardcore Royals fans, the emergence of Jorge de la Rosa as a potentially useful American League pitcher is the bigger development. Without actually developing/finding a low-cost pitching asset or four, the varying degrees to which the team "wins" the Meche signing will remain mostly irrelevant.
Thanks to Sunday's win, the Royals remain 12 games out in the AL Central, but only 6.5 games behind fourth place Minnesota.
Of course, the event on everyone's mind is the somewhat questionable (ok, lets just say "borderline pointless") recall of A----- B-----. Jalepena and A---- should form one of the most impotent SS combos in the league!
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Postscript: Sorry everyone about lack of posts... I've been a bit all over the place since the weekend, and the internet time and quality has been spotty.-RR