First off, apologies for the absence. I've watched the last four games but have not gotten around to writing about them or the Royals.
April came and went and as it left us the Royals miraculously sat atop the American League Central with a half-game lead over the White Sox and the Tigers. Their success can largely be attributed to their stellar starting pitching. After one month, Zack Greinke has established himself as the early front-runner for the AL Cy Young Award. Gil Meche's ERA sits at 3.77 and that is after dealing with back issues in at least one start, and this fan is not convinced it wasn't affecting him the start before.
As the 12 -10 record coming out of the month (12 - 11 with the outcome of the second game of their series not yet decided) would indicate, the young season has not been without its ups and downs. There have been bullpen blowups, injuries to key players, suspect defense, and cries from the masses calling Trey Hillman's bullpen decision-making into question (not that those cries were entirely defensible in retrospect).
The alarm that struck us all when Horacio Ramirez broke camp in the rotation was quickly dispelled, as Horacio is pitching only in mop up time. While Sidney Ponson's ERA is 7.16, he has actually been cursed with some fairly suspect defense behind him and has pitched well on two occasions. Obviously, we all would love Hochevar to be pitching with the Royals who are not playing their home games in Omaha, but I don't mind seeing him dominate Triple-A hitter for a bit as it is something he had yet to really do in his time with the Royals. Brian Bannister has persevered the demotion to the minors, come back, and pitched pretty well (tonight's effort being undermined by putrid defense and a bogus HBP that was a foul ball off the butt of the bat, but the Royals gave him a lead to work with again in the top of the sixth only to have that lead relinquished by a Cuddyer homer to lead the next inning off).
Mike Aviles, Billy Butler, and David DeJesus have started very slowly, but all of them have shown signs of life in the past few games. Mark Teahen and John Buck have played (at least offensively) beyond expectations, with Teahen's new hairdo possibly having led to fans across the heartland unearthing those fond memories of 2006 that they had tried to repress after two straight seasons of underachieving. Alberto Callaspo has been so valuable offensively that I have a hard time justifying any argument against his substandard glove being somewhere on the field. Jose Guillen has wowed everyone with his speed in right after coming off the DL. For those unable to detect sarcasm, that last statement was rife with it. However, as Joe Crede can attest to, Guillen's arm is still completely there.
As for the new pieces, Mike Jacobs power is as legit as his glove is illegit. Coco Crisp has been the defensive presence Dayton Moore wanted--although the weak arm is routinely run on. He has also been the lead-off man the Royals coveted, currently ranked amongst the league leaders in walks. While his speed has yet to truly be unleashed on the basepaths, expect the steals to come at some point. Willie Bloomquist, who I was very critical of after Moore signed him, has actually been pleasantly surprising so far. We all know the season is long, but Willie has three times as many extra-base hits as he did all of last season two games into May with a mere 33 at-bats, including his first home run since 2007 just this evening. Even one month of production at this level is more than I expected.
The addition no one seems to have been wrong about--well, except for Dayton Moore--was Kyle Farnsworth. He certainly has not been worth the price tag, or even what Doug Waechter has been worth. Luckily, Jamey Wright and Robinson Tejeda have picked up some of the slack that Farnsworth, and to an extent Ron Mahay have given (Mahay has shown signs of turning it around his past few outings). And the addition of Juan Cruz is one that no one is complaining about, as he is certainly a formidible set-up man.
All in all, the Royals have given us bloggers positive reasons to keep up these labors of love, and as Aprils have come to their ends in years past, we generally would not get to have said that. So despite my sporadic indignation over something relatively minor, I have to say that I am happy with where things sit right now. It is not often we get to say the Royals are in the mix of things as the season rolls into May.
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