The Royals came back from a 2-1 deficit to not only earn their second road win but a second consecutive win.

Wins for the Royals are a scarce quantity.
Strangely, it all reminds me of quote Chef from South Park said in season one: "Football is a lot like a woman; you can’t always score, but when you do it makes it all worthwhile."

If there has been a silver lining to what has become a ludicrously long DL-list, it is that the new (Kerry Robinson)  and familiar (Aaron Guiel) have really energized the lineup.

All right team! Let’s make it three in a row!!

These win shares (which I totally snagged from the awesome site FanGraphs.com by the way; check them out) are painting a bleak picture. Nice to see one of our pitchers go through 7 innings and not be stymied by the bullpen.

For what its worth, Sanders, while 0-4, did have a sacrifice fly to score a runner in the 6th.

None the less, a wins a win!! Congrat to Runvy for allowing two hits, one run through seven.

A well deserved day off!

I know I keep harping on this, but look, Minnesota is the first team the Royals will be playing that either was not in the playoff picture the final day of the season, or is not going with a new manager. That being said, Minnesota will be a tough out.

It’s hard to believe now, but it wasn’t long ago that the AL Central powerhouse was in the Twin Cities. Justin Morneau looked to be for real so they booted Dougie Baseball out (for a funny transaction of this, I recommend Sam Walker’s hilarious book FantasyLand). Oddly enough, Mientkiewicz has been on a tear as of late–even improving on his .375 slugging last night by going 2-4.

Injuries continue to be a concen. Two top pitchers, Grienke and closer MacDougal, are on the 60-day DL and won’t be contributing until May if at all. DeJesus (hammy) & Teahen (shoulder) are also nursing ailments.

Runelvys Herdandez back from six weeks at fat camp is scheduled to make his start on Wednesday. His results in AAA have been suspect but Buddy seems to think we could use him sooner rather than later.

The Royals win prompted the impromptu headshaving pictures you see here. The Royals came out strong and, playing an explosive offense such as the Tribe, the Royals were wise to put on some insurance runs.

But, oh man, thank god that is over! There comes a point where even an Optimist has to notice the rising waters.


In other news, Mientkie
wicz & the BoSox have come to terms on the off-dispited Game 4 ball. Finally! That is so 2004. Maybe with that ugly situation behind them can explain Dougie Baseball’s recent surge (.375 BA / .750 SLG) . Eh, probably not.

Affeldt has given a very strong performance today giving up only 1 run. I can’t decide which is more significant but Affy only walked TWO and fanned SIX through 5 1/3 strong innings.  These might just season best for any Royals starter. I will have to check.

Entering the bottom of the eight, hang on Royals!!

Between the crashing of my computer (again) and the duties posed on me for my child’s baptism, there hasn’t been much time to watch/listen to the games.

Thats too bad too because I am trying figure out what happened in the bottom of the 8th. I might just have to pony up the $4 for a download which goes against my principles; my principles being to only purchase games that are Royal wins!

At any rate, if it weren’t bad enough that the Royals have been plagued by so much bad luck during this AL East road swing, the Royals fans in Iowa City also have had to deal with a tornado.

Thanks to the firesale that is the Florida Marlins, its hard to believe but the Tampa Bay Devil Rays–who have finshed last place all but one year in their existence–are the favored team in Florida.

Truth is, they are a cool team. They are very young nucleus including pitching stud Scott Kazmir (right).

The Rays also have a cool iconoclastic manager in Joe Maddon (left).

Look, they are 98lb. weakling in the heavy weight division that is the AL East but they have certainly had the Royals number in the last couple of years….

Jeremy Afeldt takes the mound hoping to lower his 13.50 ERA. DeJesus is out and Sweeney and Buck are given the day off.

Lineup:

Costa
Grudzielanek
Mienkiewicz
Sanders
Stairs
Brown
Teahen 
Berorra
Bako

Facing:

Shawn Chacon (7.70 ERA)

Damon
Jeter
Sheffield
Alex Rodriguez
Jason Giambi
Matsui
Posada
Bernie Williams
Cairo

And baby it was worth it!!!

I had a slight scare when I got home–my computer had crashed apparently and could not find sysKernel32.ddl (that’s bad). Finally after a couple of re-stores and reinstalling some files, it’s back up and running but that’s a heart attack I’d like to have back!

I took a ton of pictures from the game which turned out a lot better than I thought they would. They are posted in my photo album. It took me a little bit longer than I hoped it would to get that set up, but I thought it looks nice.

At any rate, onto one of the most exciting games I have seen in a long time.

The Royals are really coming into their own as the never-say-die grinders that Buddy Bell promised he would mold them into when he took the gig. Bautista brought the heat with his pitches hitting 98mph and keeping the Thomes & Konerko’s honest with a nice off-speed changeup.

Luke Hudson also pitched well. I am wondering what the story on him is. He is pitching well but typically comes in for an inning of mistake-free middle relief and to be yanked for someone who puts the team in a precarious situation. This time he was yanked in favor of Sisco who promptly loaded the bases and frittered our lead to a one-run deficet.

The Royals desperately want Sisco to succeed in Kansas City otherwise they will lose him back to the Cubs (courtesy of the intracacies of the Rule 5 draft) and while he has been very successful in some instances, I worry that he is mostly flash and little substance.

In the end, the team ended up using five pitchers, FIVE!!, in a tight game no less. Now, I’m now saying I want Buddy to go all Joe Maddon on us here but I think the Royals of all teams would be wise to conserve the bullpen at least until McDougal comes back.

Speaking of which, did you notice that even though Bautista went 1 hit/1 run through six innings, Dessenes got the win after his 0.2 innings? There may be no crying in baseball, but some times there isn’t justice either!! 

That little rant aside, a great game and a fabulous effort.

Go Royals!