Royals Avenge Duffy's Elbow, Thoroughly Throttle Evil Rivals

As the sixth inning drew to an end, Deanna Duffy knew something needed to be done. Heading down to the clubhouse from her seat that her loving son had secured her for Mother's Day, Deanna called on the team aside as they came back to the dugout from the field. Demanding that they stop fretting about her son's balky elbow, Deanna told them that they were going to avenge her son. This was not a request. Her distaste for those South Siders was palpable. Her disdain for that frosted-tipped douche sitting in the dugout on this special Sabbath was just as thick and justified as everyone else's. "You will not let my son's elbow have come apart in vain," she directed toward everyone but Luis Mendoza, who she patted on the shoulder in approval for the job the lion-maned Mexican hurler had done to honor her fallen son.

As Johnny Giavotella stepped to the plate with two outs and two runners aboard in a previously assumed to be mythical pinch-hit appearance, he knew what he had to do. Glaring with malicious intent at Matt Thornton, Giavotella willed him to heave a wild-pitch to the back stop, advancing Alcides Escobar and Jarrod Dyson to third and second base, respectively. Thornton, not knowing exactly how that pitch got away from him but foolishly expecting that perhaps a rogue band of angels were running around on the field affecting the outcome of the game, tried to put his errant throw behind him, but the game was already lost without his knowing it. Giavotella tore Thornton's throw up the right-field foul line, doubling home his speedy brethren with the authority of a grizzled veteran.

Following an eighth inning hanging of dong by Jeff Francoeur, his first of the already 33-game-old season, the other notably diminutive Royal found himself staring down destiny in the form of the loathsome A.J. Pierzynski. Recalling Deanna Duffy's repulsion of the ignominious doucher who'd been brought in to pinch-hit, Tim Collins stared the oafish fool down and rared back to heave his best stuff at the Pale Ho backstop. After a couple of inconsequential pitches, Tim Collins sensing a peculiar psychic bond with the woman who had served as Danny Duffy's off-season backstop as Duffy grew up acted on instinct. Twirling the laced orb toward home, Pierzynski was helpless to act on his own volition, putting the hit ball squarely in Eric Hosmer's welcoming glove, who turned and tossed it to the covering Collins. As Collins stomped on the bag emphatically, the outcome of the inning and the game was certain.

To try to stash away concern for the club master potter and his worrisome left elbow, the Royals would pile on and pile on and pile on runs in the ninth and definitively vanquish the odious Pale Hoes.