Salvador vs. the Homer

Berry Bonds Be the man... without him #roylas have O Homers in 2014.Royals have 74 wins.Bonds hit more into the Bay than we have in 2 years

— N18026 (@Dr_Zoom_) April 9, 2014

Alex Gordon has ended the " ... more homers than the Royals" game -- which was probably a lot of fun for its participants but also very stupid because it was only eight games, the Royals are 4-4 not 0-8, and homers are cool and all, but who really cares how they score?

A reporter asked Ned Yost if he was happier than usual about Gordon's homer -- or something to that effect. He said he didn't care how his team scored the runs. Makes sense. A lot of fans mention the inefficiency of relying on a string of singles to score enough runs to win a game. That makes sense too.

But again ... eight games.

And Salvador Perez has already been worth 0.8 wins according to FanGraphs -- that's actually through seven games. His 1-3 with a walk yesterday probably won't injure that figure. He has zero homers, two runs batted in, and three runs scored. Mark Trumbo has five, 13, and seven, but he's only been worth a half of a win.

So even in the eye-rollingly small sample size of statistics that have been accumulated so far, the Royals have a hero!

Personally, I kind of think it'd be awesome if Perez put up MVP numbers without ever hitting the ball over the fence. He wouldn't win the award, but it'd be a great story to follow. He'd have to be pretty amazing, and get pretty unlucky on flyballs, but it would make me smile.

I don't hate homers. Actually, I krav maga'd my coffee table in half when Gordon hung that three-dong. And Salvador definitely doesn't hate them -- at least not when the Royals hit them. But as cool as they are, they're only one facet of the game and any narrative centered around eight games worth of statistics is probably a little weak.