Cold in California

The fact that Detroit's concurrent run at mediocrity has allowed the Royals to maintain a share of first place (although they are second by percentage points) offers little consolation after an embarrassing road trip to California.

While losing to a pitching-depleted Angels team is somewhat understandable given the Angels aggressive style of play and solid offense, getting drilled on back-to-back nights in Oakland by one of the worst offensive teams in baseball is deflating. Worse yet, the Royals offense was able to muster a mere five runs to Oakland's 19, and this in a good start by Bannister until he came unhinged in the sixth, with the shoulder stiffness that caused him to leave the game mid-batsman.

The Royals offense came up against Trevor Cahill and Josh Outman and were summarily shut down. One of the two Royals' runs tonight was an inconsequential solo shot by Jacobs with two outs in the ninth during mop-up duty by Andrew Bailey.

Royals pitching was undermined again by the defense. This time it was Mark Teahen booting not one, but two grounders in support of Jamey Wright. Now only one was ruled an error (oddly it was not the one he charged in front of the shortstop to field but rather the hot shot down the line that was ruled as such), but both easily could have been. This does illuminate something I've been feeling for a while. Maybe I've been watching too much baseball, but it really feels like there are a lot of balls getting by Teahen at third. Surely I may be reacting a little hastily, but there seem to be an inordinate amount of balls that will skip under a diving Mark Teahen. I am relying solely on my biased eyes here, as I've not yet become especially well-versed in the defensive metrics as they have little effect on my fantasy baseball life. It only counts half as much as offense anyway, right?

As for Wright, it has been a bit of a rough week for Wright. Tonight was no walk in the park as he recorded a solitary out while allowing one to reach on an error, one walk with the inherited runner, Adam Kennedy, already having advanced to second on a wild pitch, a hit batsman with the bases loaded, and two hits--one of which was a bases clearing double by Jack Cust. None of the four runs that he allowed (or the inherited runner he allowed to score when he plunked Kurt Suzuki in the hip) were charged to him, but after blowing the lead and taking the loss in Kyle Davies start in Anaheim, he is riding a two-straight-appearance rough patch in which he was the worst pitcher for the Royals. I hope this is a blip on the radar, but you can officially consider me concerned.

The state of the bullpen in the past few weeks have me entertaining whimsical notions of seeing if Farnsworth can pitch again. Clearly, sanity is dwindling to dangerous lows here at Royalscentricity. Another few losses, and the doctors will come in with the straight jacket, if only to make sure that Royalscentricity doesn't hurt himself.