Game 145 Open Thread - (DON'T) PANIC

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams is one of my favorite books. The series is pretty swell too, but the brilliance burns out more and more as the series goes on. The first one, though, is a masterpiece, and is one of the cleverest, funniest pieces of media I have ever experienced.

There are three particular quotes from the book which I think are pertinent to this Royals season, and they are as follows.

Ford... you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.

In this section of the book, main character Arthur Dent and company have turned on the Improbability Drive to max settings. Very weird things are happening. At this moment, Ford Prefect is turning into a penguin. Dent, very seriously and clearly in over his head, disapproves of this interaction and tells Ford to cease this action.

The Royals have been equally strange this year, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone just turned into a penguin. Our reaction would be more or less the same. We have no more explanations. They're all gone.

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.

It seems to me that the Royals must feel this way all the time. And, if we knew why the Royals have had such an inexplicable bad run of luck for almost three decades, we might just be able to solve some of the harder questions of the universe.

All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it’s pretty damn complicated in the first place.

This is baseball. It's a tricky, complicated game, and it will not be tamed no matter our understanding or lack thereof.

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As for the game today? It's a big one. Royals are 4-11 against Detroit. This is is extremely bad. It's Big Game James vs. Rick Porcello. This is as big as it gets in the regular season, so let's hope Shields does his thing and, just maybe, the offense will come alive.

But probably not. These are the Royals we're talking about here. All I can give for advice?

Don't panic.