Royals Fall to Terrible Twins, We Question the Point of Our Existence

So that happened.

Will Smith was predictably bad against a team that is duking it out with the Cubs and the Padres for the worst record in baseball. Smith allowed seven earned runs in 4 2/3 innings, presumably booking his own trip back to Omaha in the next 24 hours with his second abysmal start in three outings.

While mediocre Twins pitcher Cole De Vries hardly shut down the Royals, yielding five runs of his own, four of which were earned, he did escape with his first sacrosanct win, thus simultaneously validating his own existence while invalidating those of all in Royalsland. Unfortunately for the Royals almost all of the production until the bottom of the ninth came from Mike Moustakas, who hung dong in a solitary fashion to lead off the second inning and raked doubles in the fourth and sixth innings. Moustakas scored three runs and drove in two, doing more than his share of trying to lift the Royals from their dismal, listless play. Eric Hosmer, whose batting average is now over .215 by one-thousandth (!), went 1 - 3 and reached on an Alexi Casilla error that plated Moustakas. In total, he drove in two and scored a run in the ninth, when the Royals threatened to rally only to have Johnny Giavotella ground out, stranding Alex Gordon at second, down three runs.

On a serious note, watching the always fundamentally sound Twins play baseball the right way confirms that the Royals are indeed playing the game the right way, so congrats, guys!

When contemplating the deeper meaning of the implications this game has for all of our lives, these lines from Steven Wright's short film One Soldier when told in his wife's dream that he's going to be a father strike a chord.

[The Soldier is lying supine on the floor, head against wall, looking out the window]

Soldier: That's wonderful. That's fantastic. A little child from the world of children. Oh God, oh Becky, I don't care if it's a boy or a girl as long as it's a boy. Just think, little tiny fingers and little eyeballs. Oh my god, let's boil the water now. Let's boil all the furniture. I'm gonna go outside and boil the horses. Maybe we shouldn't name him, that way he can never be drafted. Oh, it almost makes me wanna get up off the floor. How do you feel, Becky?

Becky: Fine.

Soldier: Little baby gets to be inside of you all the time. I'm jealous. What if the little baby doesn't wanna live in this house? What if he doesn't wanna live here with us? And then when the little baby's 80 years old, we'll just be dust! Oh, Becky, I love you! [Looks back out the window and crosses legs]