Missing!

Who: The Kansas City Royals' offense.
Last seen: April 10th, 2008, in the first inning. Twenty-six innings ago.
Prime Suspect: Jose Guillen, who after he drove in Mark Teahen with a double was seen walking away with the team's offense handcuffed to his bat.

Witnesses report seeing him holding the offense hostage on multiple occasions since: when he grounded into a double play in his following at-bat; when he struck out with two men on in the 8th; when he struck out with the bases loaded and one out in the fifth inning the following night; and most recently, leading off the 9th inning tonight with the Royals down by 2, after Joe Nathan fell behind 3-1, with thousands of fans on their feet hoping to get the tying run to the plate, Guillen swung at ball four - a pitch about an inch above his ankles - and grounded out.

If you come into contact with the suspect, please call the authorities immediately. Alternatively, feel free to arrest him yourself - he's considered armed, but definitely not dangerous.

- All my life, I've waited for a manager who thinks along with me. The wait may be over. I wrote a few days ago that Tony Pena should start with John Bale on the mound, but that Callaspo should start when Meche was on the hill on Friday. Hillman started Pena on Thursday, and Callaspo on Friday. I hadn't even gotten around to arguing that Jose Guillen needs to be dropped in the lineup posthaste - tonight Guillen was batting 5th, swapping with Butler. (If he doesn't get his act in gear by the next time the Royals face a RHP, I expect/predict he'll drop to 6th and Gordon will bat 5th.)

I also had not had time to argue that Joey Gathright, for all his speed, simply wasn't hitting worth a damn, and was a much better fit in the 9 hole (the classic AL strategy of the "second leadoff hitter", a strategy which has come to the National League in the form of the "pitcher bats 8th" gambit.) Tonight, Gathright batted ninth, with the suddenly ubiquitous Callaspo in the leadoff spot. It didn't work, at least if you count success as "scoring a run." But it was the right move to make. If you're not a Royals fan you might be wondering what the big deal is here. But if you are a Royals fan, you know how amazing it is to have a manager who makes rational and predictable decisions. Never underestimate the power of common sense. And never underestimate its rarity.

- The Royals have scored 33 runs in 11 games, and here are the seasonal batting averages of the nine guys in tonight's lineup: .333, .343, .316, .372, .133, .311, .111, .333, .214. Two-thirds of the starting lineup is hitting .311 or better. That the Royals have only scored 3 runs a game is testament to just how bad Tony Pena has been, and how much Guillen's struggles have killed the Royals in the middle of the lineup. But it's also testament to just how useless batting average is.

The Royals came into tonight's game batting .266, which is actually 2nd in the AL. But they had hit just 4 homers in 10 games, and walked just 22 times. Not only were they last in the league in both homers and walks, but their lack of secondary skills has been so bad that despite their lofty position in batting average, they were dead last in the league in both OBP and slugging average. Tonight they walked twice and did not manage an extra-base hit.

One of these years the Royals will learn that there's more to an offense than singles and stolen bases. One of these years.

- The day will soon come when we'll need to talk about long-term contracts for the likes of Gordon, Butler, and Greinke. But can we go ahead and get the team's MVP signed to a lifetime contract right now? You can have your Dave Duncan, your Leo Mazzone, your Bud Black. I'll take Bob McClure, thanks. The team's ERA is 2.82. (The defense has chipped in a .995 fielding average and no unearned runs.) The bullpen has allowed 4 runs - half of them charity offerings by Hideo Nomo - in 31 innings. (Weirdly, all four runs came on solo homers.) Come on, Mr. Glass - lock him up now. We'll even throw in some of Avron Fogelman's real estate holdings if it will seal the deal.

Royals Today: 4/10/2008.

A quickie today:

- The Royals were due for a game like this, when the bats went silent and no amount of speed or manufacturing was going to change that. This ends a streak in which the Royals scored between 3 and 5 runs for eight straight games. According to my colleague Jason Pare at Baseball Prospectus, the Royals tied the longest such streak in their history: from April 14th to April 22nd, 2001, they also scored between 3 and 5 runs in eight straight games. (In 2001, they went 4-4. In 2001, they didn't have their 2008 pitching staff.)

The all-time record, in case you're interested - going back to 1957, when the Retrosheet database starts - is a remarkable 13-game stretch by the Expos from April 10th to 22nd. There's something about April. My guess is the cooler weather makes it less likely for teams to have a big offensive day.

- Tony Pena may be 1-for-27, but Hillman still hasn't allowed him to bat in a game the Royals were losing after the fifth inning. Callaspo hit a sharp liner that bounced in front of Robinson Cano and nearly castrated him; he's now 4-for-10 on the season, and you have to figure that if Hillman is smart enough to pull Pena from the game when the situation emphasizes offense over defense, he's smart enough to start Callaspo more and more at shortstop. Like, say, tomorrow.

- I thought signing Hideo Nomo was a publicity stunt more than anything, and I guess he proved me wrong. But having seen him pitch, I can't say I'm all that impressed. I don't think he broke 86 (and that's on the Fox gun, which means he probably was topping out around 65.) He's trashed the Tornado windup, but something about his delivery - he still has that herky-jerky stutter - must be deceiving the hitters, because he was still fooling hitters with a 74 mph splitter when he located properly.

Hillman's decision to send him out there for a third inning was quite stunning, and that's not hindsight - I was questioning the decision in real time. Nomo was trying to compensate for his lack of stuff by nibbling all night, and had thrown 41 pitches in his first two innings. I know he's a converted starter, but he's been working in relief for weeks, he's already thrown 41 pitches, and he wasn't exactly dominating out there in the first place - he had allowed two hits and two walks, without any strikeouts.

It's still a 3-run game in the ninth inning, and Mariano Rivera is 38 years old, so you've got a shot if you keep this game close. Ramon Ramirez has thrown a total of 11 pitches in the last five days. Why are you sending Hideo Nomo out to pitch another inning when he's probably gassed, and wasn't throwing all that well when he was fresh? Nomo almost got out of the inning - Damon had a homer that twisted just foul - but with two outs, he hung splitters to A-Rod and Posada, and it was like watching them hit off a pitching machine. I know it didn't impact the game, but come on, Trey - don't you want to see if you can break the all-time record for lowest bullpen ERA?

- If I were starting the Top 23 reasons over again today, I might have to make a place for The Comedian. In addition to being the funniest quote on the team, Mark Teahen is looking more and more like the player he was in 2006, when he was the best player on the team. He had three hits today, including a sharp single off a Joba Chamberlain slider. You have to tip your cap to anyone who can win a battle against Joba, who made Jose Guillen look like an amateur at the plate. (If I were starting the Top 23 reasons over again today, The Hothead would not be under consideration. Maybe not even the Top 123.)

- Speaking of Top 23...I hope to have #1 posted sometime this weekend. See, all that time I had to write about baseball before the season began now goes to actually watching baseball. Funny how that works out.

Royals Today: 4/9/2008.

Look, any team can start 3-0. And any team can start 6-2; the odds are about the same. (Using simple binomial theory, the odds that a .500 team will win its first three games is 1 in 8, or 12.5%. The odds that a .500 team will win at least six of its first eight games is 37 in 256, or 14.4%.)

But in eight games, the Royals have surrendered 18 runs. They have surrendered more than four runs in a game once. They have allowed one run or fewer in four of their eight games. The starting pitchers have a 2.88 ERA, and they’re being pwned by the bullpen with their 0.82 ERA. Almost as impressively, the defense has committed just one error in eight games, and that was simply an errant pickoff throw by Ron Mahay.

Five years ago, the Royals started 9-0, but four of those victories came against the Indians – who lost 94 games that year – and two more came against the Tigers, who went on to lose the most games in American League history. This year, the Royals have started 6-2 while playing Detroit – and their 1-8 record notwithstanding, that’s still a damn good team – and the Yankees a total of five times, winning all five. Both Detroit and New York are supposed to rank among the five best offenses in baseball this year; the Royals have held them to seven runs in five games.

So I ask again: are you excited yet? When I asked this a week ago, it was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Now? If you’re not excited, you’re not paying attention. If you don’t harbor at least a smidgeon of hope that the Royals could actually win the division this year, you’re a heartless cynic, a grinch, a doddering old curmudgeon who’s letting the eyesore of the last 13 seasons block the reality of the 2008 Royals that’s staring us all right in the face. This team can win. I don’t think it can win 95 games and run away with the division, but it can win 85 games and make things very, very interesting. Catch a few breaks here and there, and who knows?

The Tigers, the trendy pick to win the division, are already five games out. More importantly, the fact that they’ve started 1-7 is a strong (but not overwhelming) indication that they’re not going to be the juggernaut that many people thought they were. On paper, neither the White Sox nor the Twins looked significantly better than the Royals before the season began – and before the pitching staff turned back the clock 23 years.

That leaves the Indians, who were my pick to win the division before the season began, and who are 2.5 games out at the moment. In the Royals’ favor is the fact that the Tribe’s bullpen has looked very vulnerable so far and C.C. Sabathia has carried his postseason struggles from last October into 2008. In the Indians’ favor is that, you know, we’ve played exactly eight games. I’m not advocating that anyone kidnap Grady Sizemore, stuff him in a box and ship him to Azerbaijan by UPS ground. I’m merely stating that the Royals’ playoff chances may hinge on whether Sizemore spends the summer enjoying the beautiful vistas of the Caucasus mountains.

On to the notes:

- I needed to come up with a name for these random postings and stick with it. I thought about “The Daily Royal”, except that would imply I was writing, you know, daily. So I’ll steal a column name from my friend Joe Sheehan and go with “Royals Today.” I’m always open to suggestions.

- Trey Hillman is living a charmed life. He sends Zack Greinke out there on a cold, miserable, wet day in April, with weather reports so bad that the Yankees didn’t even bother to go with scheduled starter Ian Kennedy to start the game, preferring instead to go with a reliever (Brian Bruney) and mix-and-match the rest of the game. The game not only doesn't get rained out, it goes a regulation nine. Despite battling both the Yankees and the elements, Greinke goes eight shutout innings. Remember when people said Greinke’s issues with depression meant that he didn’t have the mental toughness to succeed in the majors? Be happy Allard Baird and Buddy Bell didn’t listen to that claptrap. Greinke’s next two starts come against Seattle and Oakland – I see a big strikeout game in his future.

- For the second straight start, Hillman left Greinke in one inning too long. Greinke gave up a single and a double in the eighth, but a well-timed DP saved some runs – and just as importantly, some pitches on his arm. I’m glad the game has evolved to the point where forcing his starter to throw 107 pitches on a cold, rainy day is about the worst a manager is allowed to do anymore.

- Someone please inform Hillman that Jorge Posada was removed from Tuesday’s game after six innings because of a dead arm. Be sure to let him know that Jose Molina, his replacement, has thrown out 41% of attempted basestealers in his career, and 43% (79 of 185) of aspiring thieves over the past five years.

Apparently, Hillman did not notice, because after running crazy on Posada (four steals in six innings, three by Gathright, two on pitchouts), Hillman gave Ross Gload – Ross Gload! – the perpetual green light. With one out in the seventh, Gload took off for second before Ross Ohlendorf committed to the plate, and was somehow safe at second when Jason Giambi had trouble handling the pickoff throw. On the very next pitch, Gload lights out for third base – Molina had him dead to rights. Gload came into the game with eight steals – in his career. He’s a first baseman. Suddenly he thinks he’s Rod Carew?

Today, Alex Gordon (who at least has shown the ability to steal effectively in the past) was thrown out trying to steal second, and an inning later, Gathright (after stealing second) was thrown out trying to steal third even as Grudzielanek worked a walk. That cost the Royals at least a run. Eventually this kamikaze basepath commando approach is going to cost the Royals a game.

The Royals are now 10-for-15 in stolen bases, which is below the break-even point, and this doesn’t count the many, many baserunners eliminated because of overaggressiveness once the ball was put in play. The stolen base has a place: it’s a great tactic when limited to your best baserunners, and when utilized against weak-armed catchers or pitchers who are slow to the plate. Gathright vs. Posada? Good. Gload vs. Molina? Bad. Very, very bad. Come on, Trey. You’re smarter than this.

- John Buck, meet fountain. Fountain, meet John Buck. From 439 feet away. Through the rain. It’s just one swing, but it’s been a long time since any of Buck’s swings showed off the light-tower power he’s capable of.

- Can we all agree that Jose Guillen should bat no higher than 6^th until he gets his average over .200? A 3-4-5-6 of Teahen, Butler, Gordon, and Guillen breaks up the lefties and righties nicely, and gets Butler’s insanely hot bat directly behind Teahen’s new-found patience.

- Speaking of Teahen…he walked three times tonight, and the Royals as a whole drew six, after five yesterday. Maybe it was the Twins’ pitching all along. But Teahen now has more walks than any two teammates combined, and more than that, it looks like it’s deliberate. He simply isn’t swinging at pitches that aren’t strikes, and seems to understand how important it is for him to get on base batting ahead of Guillen/Butler/Gordon. Teahen may very well be the fulcrum around which this lineup sinks or swims, and so far he looks a lot closer to his 2006 form than 2007.

- Tony Pena’s ugly blooper that won the game on Opening Day is still his only hit of the season. Bale goes tomorrow, and Pena should be out there for his defense. Come Friday, it’s time to give Alberto Callaspo another shot.

- Okay, now this is getting weird. The Royals’ run totals this year: 5, 4, 4, 3, 4, 3, 5, 4. I’m trying to find out if the Royals have ever had a stretch like that; I’ll let you know if I do.

- Allowing just 18 runs in an eight-game stretch seems almost historic, and it might be. But last year, over an eight-game stretch from June 24^th to July 2^nd, the Royals allowed just 19 runs. (And three of those games went extra innings.)

Which is to say: eight games means something, but not everything. Any team can start 6-2. Let’s get excited, people. But not too excited. (Yet.)

Random Post: April 8th, 2008.

Sorry for turning the lights out over here at RotR the last few days. That's going to happen every now and then in my line of work. Anyway, my friends over at Royals Review and Royals Authority have been busy keeping up with the plot lines over the past few days. To wit:

- The bullpen is ridiculous.
- The edict to take more walks has, um, been slow to sink in. The team went an entire series in Minnesota without drawing a walk, and while the Twins emphasize control with their pitchers more than any other team in baseball, that's still sort of sad.

Other thoughts:

- Six games in, and Gil Meche has been the worst pitcher so far, which is less a reflection of him than the rest of the staff. Meche and John Bale are the only two pitchers (out of 11) with an ERA above 2.70. I am impressed.

- The offense has somehow made up for a lack of punch with incredible consistency. Runs scored in the first six games: 5, 4, 4, 3, 4, 3. Three to five runs is a team's sweet spot for offense, but that's a little ridiculous. Amazingly enough, the Royals also had a stretch last season (May 1st to 6th) where they scored between 3 and 5 runs in six straight games, but nonetheless that's a pretty rare feat. More to the point, if they continue to score 3.83 runs per game, they're eventually going to score so few runs that not even their pitching staff can bail them out.

- Joakim Soria is filthier than Jake Peavy's pitching hand. He closed the game out on Sunday by striking out the side on 12 pitches. It's probably not the most dominant inning in Royals history (Jeff Montgomery once struck the side out on 9 pitches, an event that is literally rarer than a no-hitter) - but it's close. He struck out Justin Morneau, who I'm told is a well-respected hitter, on three pitches: a fastball on the corner low and outside, 91 mph; a changeup to the exact same spot that dropped six inches at the last moment as Morneau swung over it, 84 mph; a slow, looping curveball to the exact same spot that Morneau was about 3 feet in front of, 68 mph. That's three pitches, thrown to the perfect spot on the outside edge at the knees, at three different speeds and with three different trajectories.

It's strange to say this, but Soria resembles the rookie Zack Grienke more than Greinke himself does. The Mariano Rivera comparisons are suddenly sprouting everywhere - Buster Olney had a good article on this at ESPN.com - but while Soria throws a great cutter, he's the exact opposite of a one-pitch pitcher. And the more I see his repertoire, the more I think he could be equally successful in the rotation. It will take some cojones for the Royals to mess with success. Especially this much success.

- After raving about Hillman's use of Callaspo as a late-inning pinch-hitter for Tony Pena on Friday, Hillman went one better the next day and started Callaspo at shortstop against Livan Hernandez. The results were mixed; Callaspo tripled, scored and drove in a run, but also was unable to snare a line-drive off the bat of Matt Tolbert cleanly leading off the sixth, which keyed a 3-run Twins rally. Pena's advantage with the glove almost exactly balances Callaspo's advantage with the stick, which means the Royals will get the most out of the position by mixing and matching their talents. Using Callaspo to pinch-hit when the Royals are losing late (or using Pena as a d-rep when they're holding a lead) is obvious. Beyond that, Callaspo is a switch-hitter, and so should start against "hard" right-handed pitchers - RHP who have bigger than normal platoon splits.

But more than just platooning based on the opposing starter, Hillman should strongly consider "platooning" Pena and Callaspo depending on his own starting pitcher. When Bale starts, Pena should always be out there - Bale is the sole left-hander in the rotation, and a groundball pitcher to boot, which means a ton of balls to the left side. But the other four starters are all right-handers, and three of them (Greinke, Bannister, and Tomko) are flyball pitchers, meaning the Royals could start Callaspo and not suffer all that much defensively.

As I write this, the Royals have secretly replaced Brian Bannister with Daniel Cabrera. Through four innings, The Professor has walked four and struck out five, and he's already thrown 84 pitches. He seems to be fighting the cold, the Yankees hitters, and the umpire all at once - and he's battling them to a draw so far.

The Royals have returned the favor, with four walks of their own. You know it's a weird day when the Royals end a streak of 125 consecutive plate appearances without a walk - and the streak is broken by Pena.

- Finally: Rock chalk, Jayhawk. I believe this is the first championship of any significance for the locals since Wichita State won the College World Series in 1989. That was so long ago that the starting catcher for the Shockers was Eric Wedge. Yeah, that Eric Wedge.

Thoughts on the Game: April 4th.

We were going to lose eventually. It’s never fun to lose by one run, because you can always find half a dozen ways in which the game result turned on a split-second play or a questionable ball/strike call or a groundball with eyes. We beat the Tigers by one run on Opening Day, so call it even. And since the Tigers are more likely to be in the thick of the division race, so long as we’re all drinking the playoff Kool-Aid together you’d much rather have the win against Detroit.

I only caught the first inning of this game on TV, so most of these observations are off the play-by-play. Take them for what they’re worth.

- This was my first glimpse at the home broadcast (I watched the previous games on MLB.tv, which provided the Tigers’ feed) since Fox Sports picked up the TV rights. It’s obvious that the production values are higher, but what caught my eye were the commercials. I always thought the Royals’ commercials were the perfect synopsis of the team, because they were almost invariably poorly conceived and ham-handedly executed. Many of them were downright juvenile; it was like the team ran their commercials by a focus group made up of fourth-graders.

The commercials I saw today had an edge to them. Cue some foreboding music. Narrator speaks in a deep, gravelly voice: “Things change. It was the end of days for the Jumbotron. We brought it down” – as we watch Billy Butler taking batting practice – “with respect, and with batting practice” – as Butler’s home runs crash into the Jumbotron, evidently knocking it over.

I love the concept; it’s about time the Royals try marketing to grown-ups for a change. I have just one problem with the commercial: the special effects of the baseballs exploding on the scoreboard look like someone spent ten minutes on a Mac adding some video clip art to the scene. Come on, guys. If you’re going to go to all the trouble of making a commercial, don’t give us special effects that call to mind Luke Skywalker making his final approach on the Death Star.

- Man, Joey Gathright is fast. Bunt single, stolen base, run scored. That he was thrown out eight times in 17 attempts last season is just criminal. Someone needs to be fired for that.

- Man, Billy Butler’s hand-eye coordination is just sick. He battled Scott Baker for nine pitches in the first, at one point getting a piece of a fastball that was a foot inside immediately followed by a slider that was down and away. It’s getting to the point where his hand-eye coordination might be too good – he can hit just about any pitch, but he’s also swinging at just about every pitch. Butler was an OBP beast in the minors, and needs to get back to that.

- Of course, he finished the at-bat with a single right up the middle to plate Grudzielanek. He may not be an OBP beast, but he's a beast. Only, for the second time in three games, he was then thrown out trying to advance when the throw from the outfield was cut off. On Wednesday, the decision was defensible, because there was a play at the plate and decoying the cutoff man to plate an insurance run was a smart move. Tonight’s decision was not smart – Grudzielanek was going to be safe either way.

Teahen led off the second with a double which might have scored Butler, but you can’t really play that “what-if” game – for one thing, Gload’s flyout would have ended the inning and Teahen never would have scored. The one thing we know for sure is that the Royals would have had another out to play with. Would Joe Nathan have hung a slider to John Buck and given the Royals the lead? Probably not, but we won’t know because the game ended with him on deck. The most precious commodity in baseball are your 27 outs. The American League has already kindly alleviated you of the need to field, Billy – can we at least ask you to learn how to run?

- The Royals only got that second run thanks to a dumb decision by Matt Tolbert, the Twins’ rookie second baseman (no, I hadn’t heard of him either – Baseball America doesn’t list him among the Twins’ Top 30 Prospects.) With men on first-and-third, one out, Guillen hit a slow chopper to the second baseman, and Grudzielanek put on the brakes halfway between first and second. Tolbert chased Grudz back a few feet, but then instead of chasing him down he threw on to first, allowing Grudz to move up to second easily. You’re going to get one out either way – why wouldn’t you go for the lead runner? I’m not trying to be the fundamentals police here, but these things add up, a run here, a run there. This time, and roughly 40 times a season, one run decided the ball game.

- I don’t want to unduly alarm anyone, but the Royals scored three runs and have scored a total of 16 runs in 38 innings. More to the point, they didn’t draw a single walk tonight, and now have eight walks in four games. Neither Gordon nor Butler has drawn a walk yet. OBP, guys. No. Brainer.

- John Bale allowed ten hits and four runs in 6.1 innings, and struck out just two. Despite this, it looks to me like a pretty good start. He was a groundball machine – 13 groundouts to four flyouts, and seven of ten hits were on the ground as well, four of which were infield singles. He’s not going to give up four infield singles a game, not with this infield defense. As long as he keeps the ball down and it takes three hits to score a run, he’s going to be fine. If it’s going to take a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice squeeze to score the winning run against him every time out, he’s going to win more often than not.

- It’s early, but Hillman seems to favor the set lineup. Four games in, and with the exception of Gathright taking over for DeJesus after David reinjured his ankle, the lineup has been identical in all four games. Hillman’s lineup against the lefty Kenny Rogers was the same as against all three RHP. I would have thought Hillman would have used Matt Tupman one time, if for no other reason than to let the kid play in a major-league game before he returned to Omaha, but Buck got all four starts in Olivo’s absence. This is neither a compliment nor an insult, it’s just an observation at this point.

- We’ve held our breath waiting to see how Hillman would handle this situation, and the answer is: for the first time all season, Tony Pena was slated to bat with the Royals losing in the 6^th inning or later – Hillman pinch-hit for him with Alberto Callaspo.

I can say, without a trace of hyperbole, that this is the best sign yet that Hillman knows what he’s doing. Pena is a legitimately excellent defensive shortstop, but his game-winning blooper on Opening Day is the only time all season he has reached base safely. Callaspo is a marginal major-league shortstop; there are a lot of managers who simply would not pinch-hit with him for Pena under any circumstances because they feel the defensive hit is too great. Hillman is not one of those managers. Thank God.

- Jimmy Gobble. My goodness. You guys saw this; all I see is three lefties up, three lefties walking back to the dugout. Three lefties named Joe Mauer, Jason Kubel, and Justin Morneau. My goodness.

While many right-handed relievers were formerly failed starters, for whatever reason most of the lefty specialists in the majors were groomed as relievers in the minors or very early in the major league careers: from closers like Billy Wagner and B.J. Ryan to setup guys like George Sherrill and Damaso Marte to LOOGYs like Steve Kline and Trever Miller.

Gobble, on the other hand, wasn’t a full-time reliever until last season, his fifth in the majors. He really seemed to come into his own after he dropped more sidearm against LHB in late May. Now that he has a defined role, he might be ready to really flourish. I wouldn’t use an Arthur Rhodes comp – the reason it took Rhodes so long to move to the pen was because his stuff was so good that the Orioles were loath to waste it in relief. But Eddie Guardado might be a good comparison. Guarado was an immensely hittable starting pitcher at the start of his career, but he moved to the bullpen when he was 25 and soon became Everyday Eddie. Gobble, like Guardado, is a flyball pitcher who couldn’t strike anyone out as a starter but whose strikeout rate spiked in relief.

I may have said this before, but remind me again: why did we need to sign Ron Mahay?

- Ramon Ramirez completed the bullpen’s perfect day, which means that Carlos Guillen’s home run off Brett Tomko remains the only run given up by the bullpen in four games. Their combined line: 10.2 innings, five hits, one run, three walks, 16 strikeouts. As recently as 2006, the bullpen’s ERA for the year was 5.41. The ability to put together an effective bullpen on the cheap is one of the easiest ways to discern the good GMs from the bad ones. I guess that means you all know who’s going to be #1.

Thoughts on the Game: April 3rd.

(Thoughts on the Game(tm) is an unregistered trademark of Rany on the Royals. Any use of the term "Thoughts on the Game" without my express written consent will upset me greatly. There may even be tears.)

Ahem.

Three and oh. Five runs allowed in 29 innings, against one of the most feared offenses in baseball. Mark Grudzielanek is third in the league in batting average, Alex Gordon is tied for the league lead in homers, Joakim Soria is tied for the league lead in saves.

And Trey Hillman has won the first three games of his managing career. Hillman is the 15th full-time manager in the franchise's history, and even counting the interim guys, only two other Royals managers won their first three games. One of them was Whitey Herzog. The other manager actually won his first four games in a Royals uniform, a mark Hillman will try to match Friday night in Minnesota.

The other manager was Buddy Bell. Let's be excited, my friends, but not too excited.

- I caught about half of Greinke's outing, and he really seemed to be fighting it some. He threw a fair amount of off-speed stuff, which I liked, but the Tigers adjusted well to it, perhaps because had just spent the previous day being embarrassed by the pedestrian velocity of Brian Bannister. He pitched in and out of trouble all day - he worked out of the stretch against 14 of the 29 batters he faced, which is a ton when you consider that he faced a hitter leading off an inning seven times. He had a rare miscue on a sharp comebacker off the bat of Clete Thomas in the fifth, as the ball tipped off his glove and all hands were safe (a pure reaction play, not an error), which turned a potential inning-ending double play into first-and-second, one out. He got away with a couple hanging breaking balls, including one in the third that a younger Gary Sheffield probably would have parked in the seats instead of Teahen's glove. And for all that...he gave up one run in seven innings.

- It easily could have been no runs in six innings. I was surprised to see Greinke take the mound in the seventh; he had only thrown 88 pitches to that point, but given that he was working from the stretch all game, he had more wear on his arm than his pitch count would suggest, and it was the first start of the season, and it was a cold day. He gave up the homer to Inge, then got out of the inning when Grudzielanek climbed the latter to snag Polanco's liner - it was pretty obvious he was gassed. I don't want to make too much of this; the notion that we would question a manager for letting his starter throw 99 pitches would have been laughable even five years ago. But I think it's something to file away for later in the season, to see whether Hillman brought one of the bad ideas back with him from Japan.

- I thought Gordon would be the guy to break Balboni's record, but I didn't think it would be this year. His bomb today was even more impressive than on Monday, an opposite-field shot that cleared the wall to the centerfield side of left-center; I believe the measurement was 410 feet. His out in the 7th may have been most impressive of all; Gordon flicked a pitch to left field that looked like a can of corn off the bat, and Marcus Thames banged his head off the fence (luckily catching the padded portion) while making the catch. Apparently the wind was blowing out, but hey, it's nice to have a player who hits the ball high enough and far enough to take advantage of a tailwind. Just thirty-five more, Alex.

- On any list of the most important statistics to keep an eye on this season, you'd have to include "the number of Mark Teahen homers." If the Royals can get 2006 production from Teahen, they'll have one of the better #6 hitters in all of baseball. In three games, he's got a homer and a triple. The labrum tear that ended his 2006 may well have impacted his power last year, and now he's 18 months out of surgery.

- Hillman sent just one runner in motion today, and it led to a key insurance run. Gathright challenged Ivan Rodriguez, and despite a perfect throw made it just in under the tag. Would he have been safe a year ago? For all his speed, Gathright has had massive trouble with his basestealing technique in a Royals uniform; before today he had 19 steals and 14 caught stealings as a Royal. As a member of the Devil Rays, he stole 38 bags and was caught just 9 times. But this season, he stole 10 or 11 bases in spring training without getting caught once. One pitch after his steal, Guillen ripped a single to left. Gathright would have scored anyway on Butler's single, but you still have to be impressed with the sequence. Bob McClure is everyone's favorite coach, but we need to start sharing some of that love with Rusty Kuntz. Man, that's an awkward sentence.

- Soria has pitched in all three games, and while I strongly support the idea of using your best pitchers as often as is reasonable, in two of those games he protected a four-run lead and a three-run lead, and now he's almost certainly unavailable Friday night. With John Bale going the Royals are unlikely to get much use out of their lefty specialists, which means that Yasuhiko Yabuta will almost certainly be needed. That's fine, but I'd prefer it if a guy making his major league debut wasn't forced to do so in a tight game. Don't be surprised if Leo Nunez gets called upon if there's a save situation. It seems there is no cure for the thinking that a manager must use his closer to protect a ninth-inning lead, no matter how large. The best medicine is simply to have such a good bullpen that there's little dropoff when you send your #2 or #3 reliever out there in a tight spot.

- I didn't see Ramon Ramirez pitch, and he did give up a single (what was Sheffield thinking?) and a double. But the other two hitters he faced struck out. Remember, Ramirez and Nunez are supposed to be the last two guys in the bullpen. Remind me again: why did we spend $8 million on Ron Mahay? I know, I know - not every team is going to be as righty-heavy as the Tigers are. Credit to Hillman for doing the obvious: 29 innings against the Tigers, and every one of them was thrown by a right-handed pitcher. Everyone knows the Tigers' Achilles heel is their bullpen, but the heavy lean in their lineup is going to be a big problem for them against teams that can pump out power arms from the right side. The way the Royals are playing, this sort of tactical maneuvering by Hillman could well decide the pennant race between these two teams.

Is that being too excited? Well then, call me a hypocrite. Just remember to call the Royals a first-place team.

Reason #2: The Manager.

(I meant to get to this sooner, but the Royals have been distracting me with their winning ways. So go blame them.)

I have no animosity toward Buddy Bell, and wish him well. He is, by all accounts, a decent and good man, devoted to his family, and there are a lot of star ballplayers you can’t say that about. I am happy he appears to have made a full recovery from throat cancer, and I hope he lives a long and healthy life.

That said, I remain as bewildered by the Royals’ decision to hire him as the day he was introduced as manager. I said at the time that picking Bell sealed Allard Baird’s fate as general manager, and I’m certainly not retracting that position. Bell brought some stability and integrity to the role after the wild Tony Pena years, which at their best brought us 92 days in first place in 2003, but at their worst gave us the spectacle of having the manager jump into the shower fully clothed to motivate his troops in 2004, then going so far as to guarantee the Royals would win the division when the team fell to 7-14 going into their game on May 1^st at Yankee Stadium, where Pena and Baird decided was the perfect place for the immortal Eduardo Villacis to make his major league debut. (And, as it turns out, his swan song.)

Buddy Bell handled his departure with as much class as was possible, announcing two months ahead of time that he would not be returning for another season. Pena handled his departure with as little class as possible, abruptly resigning in the middle of the night rather than get on a plane back to Kansas City, where coincidentally a subpoena had been issued to question Pena’s role in the divorce of his neighbors. You can see where I’m going with this.

You have to wonder if Bell’s “retirement” was less his own decision and more a way for him to save face after it was clear to him that the Royals would not be bringing him back for 2008. He ostensibly resigned to spend more time with his family, and was to stay in the organization as a senior adviser to Moore. Then, barely a week after the season ended, he left to join the White Sox as their director of minor league instruction, a job title which sounds like it will involve a lot more travel than being a senior adviser.

If Moore really had planned to axe Bell after the season all along, then kudos to him. Bell brought gravitas to the manager’s chair, but not much of anything else. He also hamstrung the Royals in numerous ways, many of which we’re just learning about. (In a recent Flanagan column, John Buck all but fingered Bell as the person who made him give up his new leg kick last season – you know, the leg kick that helped Buck slug .600 in his first 40 games.)

In his place, Moore hired Trey Hillman, a candidate so off the radar that he wasn’t even rumored to be under consideration until after he had already been offered the job. I was at Disneyworld with my wife and kids when I read the news on my iPhone, which is appropriate, because it’s supposed to be the Happiest Place on Earth.

Hillman has one of the more eclectic backgrounds you’ll find in a big-league manager, which I won’t rehash here. I’ll simply point out that when hiring a manager, the GM has to decided between a fresh new hire – and you can never be certain about someone who has no track record of success – or a recycled manager, who’s only available because a previous employer found him wanting. Moore somehow found a guy free from either concern. Hillman may not have “major-league manager” on his resume, but two Japan Series appearances and one championship constitute a better track record than a lot of guys who’ve managed in the majors for years. (Like, say, Buddy Bell.)

But because Hillman’s experience to this point came in Japan or in the minors, we really don’t know what kind of manager he will be. Will he be as aggressive as Tony LaRussa in using his bullpen, or ride his starters like Dusty Baker? Is he willing to platoon or does he prefer a set lineup? Does he like to put runners in motion or does he prefer to play station-to-station ball? We can’t answer those questions as definitively as we would like. Well, we could, if we had access to comprehensive statistics from Japanese baseball, were intimately familiar with the personnel over there, and were able to translate from Japanese to English fluently. If Robert Whiting is reading this, by all means, contact me.

So the jury is still out on Hillman. But a preliminary answer to all those questions I’ve raised appears to be, “yes.” Yes, he’s willing to be aggressive with his relievers, and he’s willing to ride his starters. He’s willing to platoon, and he’s willing to write the same guy’s name in the lineup every day. He’s willing to bunt and steal and hit & run if he needs to, and he’s willing to put up a red light if he needs to. That’s the one trait I’m most comfortable pinning on Hillman, and one of the reasons I’m so optimistic about his hiring: he’s adaptable.

He’s received a lot of attention for putting a lot of emphasis on small-ball fundamentals this spring, and a lot of attention for somehow winning Japan’s Pacific League for a second straight year with a team that finished last in the league in runs scored and most other offensive categories. But Hillman’s first Pacific League champion, the team that won the Japan Series, had a much more explosive offense – one of his two best hitters retired after the season, and the other left as a free agent. The Fighters offensive style in 2007 was in itself an adaptation to life without the heart of their order.

When the Royals hired Tony Pena as their manager six years ago, one of the other candidates under consideration – certainly the guy most Royals fans wanted hired – was Buck Showalter. What I find interesting is that Hillman reminds me of no one more than Showalter. A happy Buck Showalter.

Both guys started their managing careers in the Yankees’ farm system, and both had tremendous success right off the bat. Showalter skippered the Oneonta Yankees in the New York-Penn League in 1985 and 1986, with records of 55-23 and 59-18. In 1990, Hillman got his managing start, also with Oneonta, and went 52-26. Showalter’s minor league winning percentage is much higher – he managed only five years in the minors, and finished in first place four times. Hillman managed in the minors for 12 seasons, and finished first three times.

Both are hyper-prepared and detail-oriented to the point of being anal-retentive. When Showalter was hired as the Diamondbacks’ first manager, he took on such an overriding role in the organization that he involved himself in the design of the team’s uniforms. The KC Star had a quote from Hillman early in spring training, about the different lineups he was pondering for the team:

“We’ve actually have 20 already done but I haven’t typed the other five up and I have to redo the ones that have misspelled names. I hate misspelling people’s names.”

Um, yeah. He’s quite the perfectionist. As Joe Posnanski wrote in the Star in the newspaper’s massive baseball preview last Sunday – the day before Opening Day is always one of my favorite baseball days on the calendar for that reason – Hillman is obsessed about the little things. The Royals haven’t had someone who understood, let alone obsessed, about the little things in quite a while.

Here’s a snippet from Bob Dutton regarding David DeJesus that illustrates this perfectly:

“The coaches are teaching us that there are so many little key things that pitchers give away that you can take advantage of,” he said. “Like when you’re stealing, look at the back shoulder instead of just looking at the leg lifting.”

Ask DeJesus why he is only learning such skills now, and he shrugs. There is recognition of his own culpability, but he also points to a sea change in organizational approach.

But it’s where Hillman differs from Showalter that is particularly important. Showalter was a great X’s and O’s manager and always the most prepared guy in the room, but he has this tiny problem of not getting along all that well with his players. There’s a reason both the Diamondbacks and Yankees won the World Series the year after he was fired. He prepared his players to win, but his presence was also quite stifling, and major league hitters chafed under his constant presence – only after he was let go did the oxygen circulate back in the room.

Hillman shows signs of being Showalter v2.0, a guy who makes sure players do things his way, but also a guy who knows when to let up a little bit. As DeJesus continued:

“The difference around here,” he said, “is in the attention to detail. Everything (Hillman) wants, he wants to be perfect. If it’s not perfect, he’ll tell you, but also he keeps it light and fun. That definitely makes it a lot easier to go out there and play.”

The signature moment of the spring for Hillman came when, immediately after Ryan Shealy ended a game with a walk-off homer, he called the entire team onto the field and lectured them about running the bases for ten minutes. It had the potential to be a divisive moment for the team, having their manager lecture them like little leaguers in front of a large crowd immediately after they had won a game.

That’s a Showalter move. The aftermath, though, was equally important. Hillman spoke to Mark Grudzielanek for several minutes immediately afterwards; we don’t know what they talked about, but given that Grudz might be the most respected veteran on the team, you have to think that Hillman wanted to make sure that he and Grudz were on the same page and that such an incident would have the proper effect on the squad. Hillman declined to speak about the incident with reporters. And he never did it again. Presumably – hopefully – he didn’t need to.

A trait that most great managers share is that, when a player is giving less than full effort, they will upbraid that player up one side and down the other – but in private, and afterwards the matter is forgotten. Great managers know how to light a fire under their players without embarrassing them, and they don’t hold grudges. Great managers don’t have doghouses.

Hillman embarrassed the entire squad, as it were, but by doing so as a group, he made certain that no player would be singled out for his mistakes. It was a classic passive-aggressive move, making a statement in front of the fans and press corps and then refusing to divulge the specifics of what happened. It was sort of extreme, but it was a one-time event, and doing so made it abundantly clear that Hillman, in his first camp with the team, was the boss.

Other than that, he’s handled the diverse personalities on the team as well as could be expected. Managing Jose Guillen alone will earn Hillman his salary, and Guillen seems happy. He defused a potential crisis with Miguel Olivo when Olivo came to camp under the illusion that he was the starting catcher.

A few years ago, I came up with what I like to call Jazayerli’s Law of Fundamentals, which states:

“A team's ability to execute the “fundamentals” is inversely correlated to the time spent discussing the importance of executing them.”

You never hear the Yankees and Braves talking about how important it is for their players to execute the fundamentals – only teams like the Royals and Pirates. That’s not to say that good teams aren’t good at the fundamentals, because they are: good teams are good at everything. That’s why they’re good. The point is that when teams can’t stop talking about “fundamentals”, it’s because they’ve reached the point of desperation – they don’t know what else to do.

Hillman talked about the fundamentals a lot during the spring, and it remains to be seen whether that’s just the standard rigmarole that every new manager needs to say – a new manager saying he wants to focus on the fundamentals is like a newly-elected politician saying he wants to get tough on crime. If he keeps harping about it, then we’ll need to worry. My hope is that, like Bobby Cox or Mike Scioscia or Jim Leyland, he won’t talk about fundamentals as much in the future because he won’t need to: his team will have already proven they can execute them on the field.

Plus, the frequent references to bunting and offensive risk-taking notwithstanding, he seems to have a pretty good grounding in what makes an offense tick. From Bob Dutton:

“I’ve spoken to all of them about eliminating batting average and going to OBP,” he said. “Because OBP really is the statistic that tells you what your chances are of scoring runs.”

Uh, Trey? You work for the Royals now. We don’t believe in that sort of thing around here. From Dick Kaegel:

“I always set high, lofty OBPs for leadoff hitters and No. 2s. I’d like to go between .370 and .380 -- that's high. It’s really high,” Hillman said. “But if you have the ability to take as many walks as you can get, it sure does help. I think he can get there, if not to .370 or .380, then hopefully .365 to .370.”

Who is this guy? What’s this “OBP” he’s talking about?

And more importantly: where has he been all my life?

I imagine I’ll talk about this in more depth in the future, but the signature weakness of the Kansas City Royals going back to their world championship has not been their pitching – they had some great pitching staffs in the early 90s. It has not been their lack of power, which is at least partly due to their ballpark. It has been their inability to get on base, specifically their inability to draw walks. Even when they won the World Series in 1985, the team ranked third from the bottom in walks drawn. Since 1980, only once (1989) has the team finished in the top half of the AL in walks. Other than John Wathan, no manager since Dick Howser has put any kind of emphasis on plate discipline.

Until now.

Talking with Dutton, here’s Hillman on his offensive philosophy:

“OBP is a no-brainer,” Hillman said. “Get on base and have guys drive you in. Be aggressively disciplined in the strike zone, but take your walks. After that, it depends on what you’re talking about.

“If you’re talking about the middle of the lineup, which I consider three through seven, then I look for run production. So I go to slug (slugging percentage).”

OBP is a no-brainer.

Not, “I think OBP is underrated”, or “there’s this new-fangled statistic called OBP that I like.” OBP is a no-brainer. It’s obvious. Duh.

You have to understand, Trey: our last few managers were sort of no-brainers themselves. Buddy Bell played Angel Berroa every day. Tony Pena Sr. was the king of swinging at the slider in the dirt himself. Tony Muser used to bat Rey Sanchez second, at least until the Royals replaced him with Neifi Perez. (The Royals acquired Perez on July 25^th, 2001, and sent Sanchez to Atlanta four days later. In all four games in between, honest to God, Perez led off and Sanchez batted second. The Royals scored nine runs in those four games and were shut out twice.)

It’s too early to know for sure. Hillman just made his first tactical decision in the heat of battle on Monday, although he's certainly off to a damn fine start. For all we know, he might fall under the spell of Ross Gload’s grit and toughness. (A hit-and-run, a bunt, and a steal attempt already? We may need to call for an intervention, people.) He might work his starters like the galley slaves in “Ben Hur.” He might enforce a ban of cell phones, iPods, and all other electronic devices from the clubhouse and endure a mutiny that would terrify William Bligh.

But from where I sit, he appears smart, resourceful, and willing to adjust. That alone distinguishes him from every manager the Royals have employed since at least John Wathan. It was under Wathan that the Royals last won 90 games in a season. I’m confident that at some point the Royals will do the same under Hillman.