Game 51 - Royals at Cardinals

The Royals send Jeremy Guthrie to the mound tonight in attempt to salvage one stinking game from the Cardinals. Guthrie, with 1268 major league innings on his resume, will be opposed by Michael Wacha, with zero innings on his resume.

We touched on Wacha briefly in the Game Preview - read it, dammit! Guthrie has lost his last three starts, allowing 17 runs in 19 innings, walking seven and striking out just four. All in all, this will be a good test for just how much mojo George Brett brings to the dugout (not really, but 'mojo' needs to be brought back to more common use).

The lineup is, well, different and, frankly, maddening. If you can actually say a guy is due and do so with a straight face, that guy is Billy Butler. He looked pretty awful at the plate last night, but I would still prefer him in the lineup over Hosmer or anyone not named Gordon. Here it is:

X Gordon LF

Des Escobar SS

Id Lough RF

Ric Hosmer 1B

Zo Cain CF

Ike Moustakas 3B

Ott Johnson 2B

Geo Kotteras C

Jer Guthrie P

(It's the anti y lineup).

Hey, there are all sorts of reasons - many not baseball related and a lot of those reasons not very good ones- on why George Brett is the hitting coach, but it is nice to have him back in the dugout. If he does not use the line 'I have 3000 hits, how many do you have?' on Hosmer and Moustakas, then he is just wasting the opportunity.