With royalsreview somewhere in the Caribbean, I'm playing substitute for him over the span of most the next week. While I cannot promise to match Will's witty verbiage, I can promise to link a lot more movies than he does in the introduction of the open threads.
Anyhow, slinging the spheroid tonight for the hometown boys is the hefty lefty, Odalis Perez, with a big shiny 5.56 ERA to go along with his utterly meaningless 4-7 record. Perez is a gamer who takes the mound with a baseball every fifth day knowing that he's not going to pitch all that great, and yet he goes out there and pitches not all that great anyway. Truly, an inspirational to those who scrape through their jobs without ever actually doing much. Ahem.
Opposing him for the hapless Devil Rays (losers of eleven straight) of the city of Tampa is James Shields (6-4, 3.76 ERA, 8.11 K/9[!]), who has improved leaps and bounds over last year's league average-ish performance after his call-up. Basically the only thing Shields does wrong is yield too many home runs, as his strikeout rate is among the best for starting pitchers and his control has been excellent. I'm sad that I didn't get to see him pitch against the Red Sox, so hopefully you all can fill me in on how thrilling it is to watch him.
Tonight's game will live on forever, and the story of the epic Royals-Devil Rays game on the 6th of July will be passed down from generation to generation until eternity's end. I have to go lifeguard, so I might not be here for a while.