That's more like it!

I'm a generally optimistic person, so when I get down on the Royals its because things are going bad. The last few days have just been the same story over and over again. Well, last night, the Royals showed why people keep getting so frustrated with them. When they have a game like yesterday, popping two homeruns and four doubles. See guys, when you drive the ball, you score runs a lot easier than having to string together singles.

Last night's line: .389/.436/.667.

Captain Obvious moment: Its all about getting on base and driving the ball. I'd be happer than a pig in, well, you get the idea, if the Royals would be able to sustain their offensive attack. The encouraging thing about the last three outbursts (all nine runs, still haven't cracked double digits yet) is that they aren't fluky bloop single outbursts. The Royals have a team have some power potential and maybe, just maybe, they'll start tapping into that soon. A few notes:

• Greinke looked fantastic last night. After struggling fairly mightily in the first, he located everything well and was just extremely sharp. I'm waiting for a bad outing, but we've seen about 21% of his starts and he's been consistently great. Lets hope the other 79% are of the same quality and Zack can take home some hardware at the end of the year.
• Did anybody who was at or saw the game think Yabuta looked significantly sharper after getting rocked in the leg? The movement on his pitches seemed to increase and he seemed to be able to control himself a little better. Granted it was just two batters, but he looked awful on the first three or four guys he faced and then he mowed down the last two. If he can become effective at this point, the Royals probably have the deepest bullpen in baseball. Maybe not the best, but the deepest.
• Speaking of the bullpen, Peralta had one of the cleanest innings you'll see. Three outs, six pitches. Its always encouraging when a good team looks like the Royals.
• This maybe should have been my first point, but is Jose Guillen fixed? We've seen him big games already this year only to fall back and give us an 0-10 stretch, but this game is coming off the heels of a day when Hillman mentioned they had figured out what was wrong with him and worked on it. If they figured out what was wrong with Guillen, then this offense improves by half a run per game easily. That's getting closer to that 4.5 per number we've talked about so many times before.
• Looks like Gordon and Butler are waking up a little bit. The last two nights, Gordon has just scalded the ball culminating last night with this blast into the bullpen and Butler's been driving the ball with some serious authority. I maintain that Butler will be more of a doubles hitter, at least early, but I still 20 homers from him this year and 25 from Mr. Gordon.
• Has anybody noticed how hot John Buck has been lately? He had two hits last night, raising his average to .253 with a .340 OBP and in his last eight games is hitting .346/.414/.577. I don't expect him to keep it up, but if he can go .250/.340/.425 this year, then he moves into the upper eschelon of catchers. Olivo's putting up the flashy numbers right now, but Buck is the far steadier and better of the two.
• I think it might be time to give Teahen a couple of days off. He looks like he's pressing out there. The Royals need to try one more time to find the 2006 Mark Teahen because what he is doing right now is not really helping the team. I thought he'd break out this year and be a fantastic #3 or #5 hitter, but so far he's disappointed me greatly. There's still time, but maybe he needs the Guillen treatment to get going.
• All in all, great win last night, now lets hope the struggling Orioles stay the struggling Orioles.