Kansas City Royals whetting fans' appetite

[franksolich]

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/royals/story/1183038.html

Oh yes.

Royals are whetting fans’ appetites

To review: The Royals win a wild, back-and-forth game at Minnesota in which they commit defensive mistake after base-running mistake after defensive mistake.

Then they win again in Minnesota in a game in which they were being no-hit into the seventh inning.

Then Zack Greinke continues his Pedro Martinez-circa-1999 routine.

And then the Royals beat the White Sox in a game in which KC’s starting pitcher gives up six runs in four innings and the Royals trail 4-0, 5-1 and 7-3.

Trey Hillman pointed out that Tuesday’s 11-inning win came in the Royals’ 15th consecutive game without a day off.

Nobody should or will ever feel sorry for professional baseball players having to — gasp — play baseball games every day, but Hillman does bring up a valid point.

This, my valued readers, is how a very interesting baseball summer begins. Some other observations:

•Coco Crisp was very leadoff, going one for two with four walks and two stolen bases. Incredibly, he did not score a single run.

According to Baseball Reference’s very cool Play Index, that has happened only 26 other times since 1954.

It’s an interesting list. Not every day you can find a set of criteria that pulls up only 26 names but includes Vince Coleman, Willie Bloomquist, Barry Bonds and Jeff Bagwell.

•Jamey Wright is proving to be a fantastic pickup. Guy struck out three in three scoreless innings made tougher by his defense, lowering his ERA to 1.45 while throwing — by far — the most innings of any reliever.

He came to Royals camp on a minor-league contract and is making $800,000 this year. That’s not far from what Kyle Farnsworth has made already this season.

Can’t imagine there are many offseason pickups making $800,000 or less who have made this kind of impact.

•We keep saying, along with lots of others, that Kyle Davies is a big key to the Royals’ season.

He is now 2-1 with a 5.88 ERA, and last September feels like a long time ago.

Taken as a whole, he’s been a bit disappointing. That’s been masked so far by Greinke’s brilliance and a good first three starts by Brian Bannister, but the truth is, the Royals need Davies to be better than this.

•Talked to Buddy Bell for a story I’m working on for the weekend. Here’s what he said about Greinke:

“It’s just an absolute thrill to watch him do what he’s doing. That’s why you get into coaching, to see (stuff) like that.”.....