Darvish Flashes Brilliance, Royals Lose Early and Often on Labor Day

After seeing the ineffable Yu Darvish throw a flawless game to the first 17 Royals who came to the plate, the Royals feigned fire in the belly and staged a pseudo-comeback only to come up predictably short against the vastly superior Rangers.

Having seen his teammates all flail helplessly at anything and everything that Yu Darvish offered them through the first 5.2 innings of Labor Day baseball, Johnny Giavotella was struck by a novel concept. Facing the pitcher third-most prone to giving opposing batters free passes via the base-on-balls in the American League, the pint-sized Orleanian of the Newer variety thought that he might be better served to work the formidible Japaniranian deep into a count. Having worked the count full, Giavotella watched a pitch go by that was 1.7 inches off the corner of the plate and miraculously found himself standing on first base. This inspired his teammates to actually attempt to wait for their pitches (at least through the end of the sixth inning because the seventh was a painful reversion to what the Royals did for the first 17 plate appearances of the game) and piece together a bit of an offensive explosion, at least by the lowly standards set forth by the post-Strike campaigns of the Glass-owned/-operated Kansas City Royals.

For the first 5.2 innings, Yu Darvish was every bit the pitcher that Rangers fans dreamed of this past off-season. He was scintillating. He was captivating. He was dominant. Everyone with access to the game was tuning in as word of a possible perfect game (and the likelihood of that possibility coming true being strong as he was facing the undisciplined collective approach of the Kansas City Royals) buzzed about the internets.

With a 6 - 0 lead for the Rangers when the perfect game and then no-hitter had both gone the way of so many before, there was little reason for most to continue watching. The Royals attempted to overcome yet another poor start from the Ten-Million-Dollar Man, Bruce Chen, who gave up FOUR home runs, dong being hung left and right off of his pedestrian offerings. That two year deal was totally necessary and a compensatory pick would not have helped at all.

Only Giavotella and Tony Abreu managed to reach base more than once, though for the second straight day, Abreu ran into an out at second trying to stretch a "clutch" single into a double.

Making sure to further the impression that the Royals are fully entrenched in outmoded thinking that never veers from the old school baseball orthodoxy, Louis Coleman "retaliated" against Nelson Cruz, who admired a home run for a moment too long earlier in the game, and plunked him. Faux team leader Michael Young sent a message as the team leader by hitting a home run in the next at-bat because team leaders do things that team leaders are supposed to do and he's a team leader because that's what the media tells us despite the fact that he bitches and moans and demands a trade every time he's asked to do something for the team because it doesn't fit his notion of what he's supposed to do as team leader because the team leader is supposed to lead the team by doing whatever the team leader thinks he should do without giving any thought to whether or not the way he's leading his team is actually serving the team in a beneficial not detrimental way.

Baseball.