Okay, that's probably about as emotional as I allow myself to get when posting about the Royals. It's hard to maintain objectivity when you're emotional about something.
The Royals tonight "managed" to end their 6-game losing streak by beating the Orioles quite handily and drama free. We've had enough drama this past week so it's nice to have a nice relaxing night--once it got going. Counting the rain delay, the game ran some five hours and the stadium still had a nice turnout when Farnsworth got his called third strike.
In the text messaging voting, an overwhelming amount of fans voted in favor of Greinke winning at least 20 games (almost 50% of all voters thought he'd win at least 24 games!) and if that's to come true, then the offense needs to be spoken with. They showed a lot of fireworks beyond the ones sponsored by Hy-Vee and Pepsi. Jacobs continued to show why he's one of the most powerful hitters when he actually touches the ball. And Olivo remembered (finally) that he's better than what he's shown thus far. But as far as getting Zack up to 20 (or even breaking Saberhagen's franchise record of 23 victories in a season), then the offense is going to have to play up to their capabilities in every game. No more disasters like we've been witnessing.
DDJ needs to get out of the second slot. I don't care what Hillman thinks about protecting the sixth hitter if he continues to bat DeJesus in a significant slot in the line-up. I don't really want to make an assumption but insistence such as this suggests to me that there's a fairly strong level of hard-headedness. It just seems to me that a guy like Coco Crisp could really benefit from having the league's #2 overall doubles hitter batting after him. Callaspo isn't going to get there, but he's on pace to tie the league's doubles record (but since he's second in the league, he'd be Sammy Sosa to Longoria's McGwire).
Other than that though, I really have no complaints about the line up. Beyond switching Callaspo and DDJ, tonight's lineup should become a standard thing until Aviles wakes up. He could benefit from a demotion.
Zack Greinke continues to display his brilliance...
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