Mayday! And It's Not Even May Day.

On Thursday night, the Royals lost their sixth game in a row, and this game was over even quicker than the previous five: the Indians pounded Kyle Davies for four homers and eight runs before he departed in the fourth inning. The Royals scored a pair of runs in the seventh, but they still lost, 8-2, their biggest margin of defeat of the season.

After not getting blown out once (a blowout defined as a loss of five runs or more) during their 12-7 start, the Royals were blown out four times in their six-game losing streak. When the Royals were 10-4, we had hopes that they might play .500 ball all season. Instead, they couldn’t even wait until May to fashion a losing record.

You might call this a disappointment, or a collapse, or claim that the Royals are destined to crush our hopes every season. I call this a dose of reality. Even when the Royals were flying high, their starting rotation was a time bomb waiting to go off. It went off, and when the bullpen hit a rough patch as well thanks to some command issues, a long losing streak was inevitable.

The Royals actually scored 22 runs in their six losses; they averaged more runs per game during their losing streak (3.67) than the A’s have averaged all season (3.30) even as the A’s are 13-13. But the pitching staff allowed 46 runs, surrendering at least seven runs in all but one game.

You’d think that as Royals fans, we’d be used to losing streaks. I mean, six games is nothing. Since the beginning of the 2004 season, this was the 24th losing streak of six games or longer. Here’s how they break down:

6-game losing streaks: 7

7-game losing streaks: 6

8-game losing streaks: 5

9-game losing streaks: 1

10-game losing streaks: 1

11-game losing streaks: 1

12-game losing streaks: 1

13-game losing streaks: 1

19-game losing streaks: 1

The Royals at least three losing streaks of 6 games or longer every year from 2004 to 2009. Last year, the Royals had only two. Progress!

Meanwhile, the Royals have had three winning streaks of 6 games or longer from 2004 until today combined. After winning their first 9 games of the 2003 season, the Royals went over five years – until June, 2008 – before they again won six games in a row.

Last year, the Royals didn’t even win FOUR games in a row at any point during the season. That is almost unheard of…except that the Royals also played the entire 2004 season without a four-game winning streak.

(My favorite Royals-related losing streak stat: in 2006, the Royals had an 11-game losing streak, a 6-gamer, and a 13-gamer – all before the end of May.)

So yeah, you’d think that we would know how to take a six-game losing streak in stride. But I understand: it’s April. Everything’s magnified early in the season, especially when you start 12-7 and Alex Gordon is hitting .350 and Jeff Francoeur looks like the guy in the catalog.

So it’s understandable that the fans might panic a little. But the manager?

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened on Wednesday, when Ned Yost decided to bench two of his starting players, Chris Getz and Kila Ka’aihue. It’s not fair to lump those two together. Benching Getz – or at least adding him to the musical chairs game that Mike Aviles and Wilson Betemit are playing – makes a lot of sense. Getz plays good defense, has excellent speed, and can take a walk. He’s also slugging .268. Both Aviles and Betemit are slugging .500. That’s a lot of power to sacrifice for a defensive upgrade. I know the concept of platooning has virtually disappeared from modern baseball, particularly in the middle infield, but it would make a ton of sense for the Royals to sit Getz vs. southpaws.

Ka’aihue, on the other hand…look, I get it. Ka’aihue is 27 years old, he’s in a terrible slump, and the Royals have two different first basemen in Omaha with an OPS over 1000. Kila’s two hits last night finally got his batting average over .200. The affect of his slump is magnified by the fact that for most of the season, he was sandwiched between a resurgent Gordon and Billy Butler ahead of him, and an out-of-body Francoeur and a hot-hitting (when in the lineup) Betemit behind him. The most efficient way to score runs in baseball is to bunch your best hitters together, so that the guys at the front of the chain are on base for the guys at the back of the chain to drive them in. Ka’aihue was the weak link in that chain for the first three weeks of the season, so I get the frustration with him.

But I don’t get the obsession with Clint Robinson from some people. Robinson won the Texas League Triple Crown last year, hitting .335/.410/.625, and is hitting .342/.425/.697 in the early going in Omaha. Which is to say, he’s simply following the path that Ka’aihue already blazed. In 2008, Ka’aihue hit .314/.456/.628 between Double-A and Triple-A. Last year, Kila hit .319/.463/.598 in Omaha before he finally made it to Kansas City for good.

Meanwhile, Kila is barely 10 months older than Robinson. Ka’aihue does everything Robinson does except hit doubles – only Ka’aihue walked twice as often in the minors, without striking out any more frequently.

More to the point, the Royals have belatedly invested a half-season of playing time for Ka’aihue in the majors to get to this point…the point where pitchers have adjusted to him, and he needs to prove whether he can make adjustments back. If the Royals give up on their investment now and promote Robinson, we’re going to be back in this same situation in three or four months, at which point you’ll have no idea what you have in Ka’aihue or Robinson, and meanwhile it’s too late to find out about either because Eric Hosmer is at the door and he’s threatening to split it in half with his bat if we don’t open it.

My friend Kevin Goldstein wrote about this specific situation with Clint Robinson here, and his conclusion is the same: everyone simmer down. Robinson has great numbers, but like Ka’aihue, there are significant scouting concerns with him, which is why they were both late-round picks to begin with.

I’m not saying that Clint Robinson won’t have a career. What I’m saying is that it’s not clear he’ll have a better career than Ka’aihue, and until there’s a clear separation between the two, you have to dance with what brung ya. The Royals don’t seem inclined to get rid of Kila completely at this point, but it was disconcerting to see him on the bench for two straight games. He went 2-for-4 last night, getting a gift hit when Wilson Betemit shielded the shortstop on a groundball that set up the winning rally in the eighth, but he’s supposed to be out of the lineup again tonight against a lefty.

As a result of these machinations and the desire to get Jarrod Dyson into the lineup, Yost moved Alex Gordon to first base on Wednesday and Thursday, an equally frustrating move. Here you have a one-time phenom who was written off by almost everyone after four progressively more disappointing seasons, who is having a miraculous, if fragile, rebirth this season. Is this really the time to have him change positions?

I understand the desire for flexibility, and I think moving Gordon to first base in the late innings when Dyson comes in for defense – as he did last night – makes perfect sense. But Gordon, in addition to hitting the crap out of the ball, has been a revelation in left field. He’s making diving plays; he’s throwing runners out at the plate; most important of all, it seems like he’s actually enjoying the game of baseball for the first time in years.

Gordon has frustrated fans for years because of his body language – he’s almost like a poor man’s J.D. Drew, in that he doesn’t give off the vibe that he actually enjoys what he’s doing. But my take on this isn’t that Gordon doesn’t enjoy baseball – it’s that he doesn’t know how to handle failure, and if anything he’s guilty of trying too hard when things go poorly. This year, for the first time, he’s come out of the gate like a house afire, the fans are on his side, they’ve gone from cheering his every hit to cheering his every at-bat. And he’s playing inspired baseball.

Why mess with that? Why add to his burden by having him start at first base? Why take the chance that he might make an error at an unfamiliar position – as he did on Wednesday night – and put his mental state in even the slightest bit of risk? Even if you want to play Dyson, you could keep Gordon in left field and DH Melky Cabrera, or you could – perish the thought – let Billy Butler play first base again and DH Gordon. Instead, Yost moved two players out of position and took the Royals’ breakout player out of his comfort zone.

Coincidence or not, Gordon went hitless in both his starts at first base, after coming into Wednesday’s game with a 19-game hitting streak. Last night, he returned to left field, and he doubled, tripled, and walked. He already has 12 doubles in the month of April; I don’t know if that’s a Royals record, but if it isn’t, it’s awfully close.

The upside of all this maneuvering is that it got Jarrod Dyson a pair of starts in centerfield, in which he managed an infield single in nine at-bats. Look, I like Dyson, perhaps more than most people, as I wrote here. But it’s clear that his bat is not ready. If the Royals want to keep him on the roster as a pinch-runner and defensive replacement extraordinaire, that’s fine. As I wrote last season, ironically, Dyson would have more value to a team in contention, because his talents off the bench can win a game, and that’s worth hampering his development for a team trying to win now.

(Last night, Dyson had more impact than any pinch-runner I’ve ever seen before. With men on first-and-third, one out, Dyson pinch-ran for Ka’aihue at first base. He was off with the first pitch; the throw bounced into centerfield, allowing Dyson to take third and Betemit to score the tying run. And then Dyson scampered home on a 150-foot pop-up to the shortstop. If Dyson doesn’t pinch-run, the Royals probably don’t score in the inning at all; instead, they score two, and win the game by one run. Dyson may not have single-handedly won the game for the Royals. But he won the game for the Royals.)

But for a rebuilding team, having Dyson on the roster makes no sense, because at this point in his development, he doesn’t have the bat to warrant regular playing time. So long as the Royals are playing .500 ball and ostensibly in the pennant race, you can make an argument for Dyson to stick around. But if and when the Royals find themselves 8 games out of first place, I hope the front office will realize that the future interests of the team are best-served by sending Dyson down to Omaha, perhaps in exchange for Lorenzo Cain, who will probably have earned an opportunity at that point.

In the meantime, if the cascade effect of starting Dyson is that Gordon has to play first base and Ka’aihue rides the pine, I’d just as soon keep Dyson back behind the “Break Glass In Case Of Tying Or Lead Runner On Base” sign.

The irony of all these moves is that on Wednesday morning, when Yost decided he needed to shake up his lineup, the Royals were second in the American League in runs scored. (They’re down to fourth now.) Think about that. The Royals, relative to the league, are on pace for their best offense in years, if not decades. It’s not a fluke…the Royals are third in the league in average, fourth in OBP and slugging, fourth in walks, first in doubles, and first in steals (with a remarkable 33-for-38 success rate). The only offensive measure they’re below average in is homers, where they rank 10th.  Meanwhile, the pitching staff is flirting with the worst ERA in the league. And Yost’s solution to this dichotomy is to…mix up the offense.

In fairness, that might be the only thing he can do. As strong as the offense has been, the Royals regularly start three players – Getz, Escobar, and Treanor – with an OPS+ of under 75. The opportunity to upgrade the offense at these three positions – either through regression, replacement, or (hopefully) genuine improvement – ought to make up for at least some of the expected regression from guys like Francoeur and Gordon. Meanwhile, unless the Royals want to rush Mike Montgomery or Danny Duffy to the majors, there’s little Yost can do with the pitching staff.

I know that Kyle Davies has replaced Jason Kendall as the roster piñata, but I’m not even willing to give up on him just yet. Davies is actually throwing more strikes than he ever has in his career – his walk rate is just 3.1 per nine innings. Throughout his career, Davies’ ultimate problem is that he doesn’t throw enough strikes for a guy with just okay stuff. So far this year, Davies has cut his walks (his career rate is 4.3 BB/9) while also increasing his strikeouts; he has 7.1 Ks per 9 this year compared to a career average of 6.3 per 9. He gave up four homers on Thursday, but prior to that he had allowed just one homer in his first five starts. Davies’ struggles this season are pretty simple to explain – he has a .380 BABIP.

That’s fluky and unsustainable, and uncharacteristic of Davies. The last three seasons, Davies’ BABIPs were .307, .286, and .316 – and with a worse defense behind him. If Davies’ ERA is still hovering around 8 a month from not, I’ll pick up a pitchfork and a torch along with everyone else. In the meantime, as boring as it might be to say this, I think the Royals should just stand pat. I’m not giving up on this season by any means – the Royals are still in second place, and I’m still not sold on the Indians – but I think it’s a touch too early to be going all-in for this season.

Meanwhile, if you want to see a team that wins every night, keep an eye on Omaha. On Thursday night, while the Royals were losing their sixth in a row, the Storm Chasers won their ninth straight. Danny Duffy pitched six innings, allowed a single baserunner (a single off the glove of a diving Johnny Giavotella), and struck out eight. Mike Moustakas hit two homers. Eric Hosmer hit only one homer – and a double, a two singles. Giavotella had three hits and a walk. Cain chipped in with two hits. Last night, while the Royals were breaking their streak, Omaha saw their winning streak end – when non-prospect Luis Mendoza gave up three runs in the ninth. That didn’t take away from Montgomery’s six inning, one-run performance. Monty has a 2.67 ERA, which pales in comparison to Duffy’s mark of 0.90. Hosmer, with two more hits last night, is hitting .412.

Soon enough, all these guys should be in Kansas City. By “soon enough”, I’m no longer talking about numbers like “2012” or “2013”, I’m talking about words like “June” or “July”. But not yet. This is shaping up to be a more interesting season than most people expected, but it would be foolish to let one so-so month alter the franchise’s long-term goals. Now two so-so months…that’s different. But for now: patience. The finish line is coming into view. Let’s not pull a hammy trying to quicken our pace now.

Royals Today: 4/22/11.

You know, if this series were played between these two teams vying for first place in September, this would have been an epic matchup, one that would have lived in Royals lore for a long time. The Royals miss a chance to take the lead in Game 1 when Billy Butler leaves second base, not realizing he’s safe, then lose in extra innings. The bullpen almost blows a 5-0 lead after six innings in Game 2, but with the bases loaded, Carlos Santana watches three straight strikes to end the game. Luke Hochevar goes from hero to zero in impressive time, even by his standards, in Game 3.

And in Game 4, the Royals find a way to come back from a 2-0 deficit after seven innings. Ned Yost pinch-runs for Billy Butler with Jarrod Dyson in the eighth, a move that immediately pays dividends when Dyson beats the flip from Asdrubal Cabrera after Cabrera smothered Jeff Francoeur’s grounder up the middle. Butler almost certainly would have been out, and the inning would have ended without a run scored.

And in the ninth, the Royals went from despair (starting the inning down a run) to exultation (men on first-and-third with none out) and back to despair, after Alcides Escobar’s grounder was snared by Jack Hannahan and Mike Aviles was thrown out at the plate. More exultation, when Chris Getz walked to load the bases and put the tying run at third again with one out, then more despair, when Melky Cabrera fell behind 0-2. And then Melky lined one past the shortstop and sent everyone home happy.

A series like this in September would have become part of the firmament of baseball memories in Kansas City. But of course, it didn’t happen in September, because the Royals haven’t played a meaningful series in September in 26 years. What’s the most memorable game the Royals have played since the strike? Maybe this game, when Carlos Beltran saved the game in regulation by taking away a homer, then winning it with a walk-off blast. That game came on July 20th. The other most memorable game? Probably Opening Day, 2004, which also featured a Carlos Beltran walk-off homer.

My personal favorite memory is probably this game in 1994, when the Royals, in the first game of a four-game series against the White Sox that they absolutely had to win in order to stay in the race, blew chance after chance in a tie game. In the ninth, with two on and one out, Greg Gagne was doubled up on Jose Lind’s fly out. In the tenth, after Brian McRae reached third base with one out, the Sox gave free passes to Wally Joyner and Bob Hamelin – and Mike Macfarlane grounded into a double play. In the 11th, Felix Jose tried to go first-to-third on Gagne’s one-out single and was thrown out. And in the top of the 12th, the White Sox got a two-out single from Tim Raines to drive in a run.

McRae tried to bunt his way on to start the 12th and popped out, but Dave Henderson walked, and Wally Joyner singled him to third to bring up the Hammer. Hamelin drove Roberto Hernandez’s pitch to center field, and my first emotion was relief that it was deep enough to drive in the run – and then elation when the ball kept carrying for a walk-off homer. That was the Royals’ third win a row; they would their next 11 games to put them a game out of the AL Central lead. A week later, Major League Baseball closed up shop for the year.

That game was on July 25th. I don’t have a single positive memory of a Royals game played in September or even August.

One of the best reasons to be a fan of a sports team is to avail yourself of the shared experiences and shared memories of that fan base. By sharing powerful memories – good or bad – with a group of people, you can’t help but feel connected with them. I’ve never lived in Kansas City, and have no real connection to the city other than the experiences and memories of watching this team play – and yet those experiences and memories are strong enough to have inextricably bound me to the city for over a quarter-century.

But I’m a special case, and if you’re reading this, so are you. Most of the people who consider themselves “Royals fans” are not connected to this web of fandom that we’ve constructed, the web that gets together on Twitter every evening to watch the Royals and argues over whether the Royals should give up on Kila Ka’aihue. It’s not their fault that they’re not connected to the team – the Royals simply haven’t given them the kind of memories that would bind them. Even bad memories, painful memories – think Lin Elliot, though not for too long – serve as a touchstone for a fan base to come together. Cleveland Browns fans still reminisce with heartache over The Drive and The Fumble, but at least they reminisce.

What do we have to reminisce about? Chip Ambres dropping a routine fly ball? Terrence Long and Ambres letting another routine fly ball drop behind them? The Royals losing 19 games in a row? Tony Pena fleeing the team in the middle of the night? These memories aren’t painful – they’re comical. There’s no real emotion attached to them. We laugh when we think about them – but we don’t really feel anything.

So forgive us if we’re getting a little too worked up over a 12-7 start, or put too much meaning into last night’s comeback. Yes, it’s April. But April memories are better than no memories at all.

I apologize for that rambling and incredibly self-indulgent intro. Now, on with some analysis.

- I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Kila Ka’aihue’s ninth-inning double may have saved his career with the Royals. For one thing, it might be a temporary reprieve. But it certainly pulled him a step away from the abyss.

Ka’aihue went 0-for-4 on Monday, when a base hit at any point might have kept the game from going into extra innings. In the bottom of the sixth, with men on first and second and none out, he tried to put down a bunt – unsuccessfully – and eventually popped out. Francoeur followed with a sharp groundball that turned into a 4-6-3 double play; if Ka’aihue gets the bunt down, a run probably scores, and the Royals probably win. He was 0-for-3 on Tuesday, then capped his day with another bunt – this one was successful – in the eighth inning. Afterwards, Ned Yost went so far as to blame the decision to bunt on a miscommunication caused by the batboy; methinks he doth protest too much. This game brought Kila’s numbers down to a .151/.270/.245 line.

He went 2-for-3 with a walk on Wednesday, but last night he struck out and grounded out to the second baseman twice, the last one into a double play. When he batted in the ninth, boos were audible on TV from the sparse crowd. The natives have grown restless.

And then Chris Perez threw a fastball down Main Street, and Ka’aihue laced a double to the left-center field gap. And the Royals went on to win. It’s just one hit, but we’re starting to reach the point with Ka’aihue where every hit becomes notable.

For everyone who sees that Eric Hosmer is hitting .393 in Omaha and wants a change to be made: hold your horses. It took Ka’aihue three years to get a job; I think he deserves more than three weeks before he loses it. If you pick Hosmer over Ka’aihue now, you’re giving up on Kila forever, and there’s no way to come back from that – his tenure with the Royals is over. If you pick Ka’aihue over Hosmer now, Hosmer just bides his time in Omaha; his chance is coming.

If the scouts were right and Ka’aihue was struggling because he couldn’t catch up to major-league fastballs, I might be more inclined to worry. But his struggles are notable precisely because fastballs are the one pitch he hasn’t struggled against. His problem has been with the slow stuff, which makes me think he’s pressing. He’s drawing his share of walks, but also striking out an inordinate amount of the time – 19 whiffs in 60 at-bats, from a guy who never struck out 100 times in a minor-league season.

Winning is a double-edged sword. If the Royals were 7-12, no one would care that the Royals were sticking with a first baseman who is hitting .181. But they are, and if they continue to win, at some point they’ll have to decide if they ought to prioritize winning today over the development of one of their best young hitters for the future. But that point hasn’t been reached. Hopefully last night’s double bought Ka’aihue some time. He deserves it.

- With full awareness that my campaign to give Royals players nicknames has failed miserably over the years – the only nickname that stuck has now been disavowed by its owner – can we all agree that Alex Gordon should now be known as The Dominator?

If Gordon had come out this season and fallen on his face again, the nickname would have worked as a sarcastic insult to the player who dared to say “I’m going to dominate next year” after four progressively more disappointing seasons. Instead, he’s backed up his rare bravado with an even rarer display of all-around skill. He leads the league in hits, and he’s on pace to hit 85 doubles. His defense in left field has been excellent; while he’s taken bad routes to balls hit into the corner a few times, he’s also made some outstanding diving plays. He also has five outfield assists in just 18 games. (By way of comparison, Johnny Damon had five outfield assists in all of 1996, and again in all of 1997.) Last night, Gordon moved to first base in the ninth inning, and immediately made a diving play to snare a grounder headed to right field.

He’s not a superstar, and three weeks doesn’t change that. But neither is he Alex Gordon, Epic Disappointment anymore. Let’s just enjoy the ride.

- Billy Butler is hitting .353/.476/.500. Just as impressively, he hasn’t grounded into a single double play in 19 games. Last year, he grounded into 32 of them.

- Jeff Francoeur is hitting .329/.363/.534 and leads the league in RBIs, but before you get too excited, consider this:

vs. LHP: 10-for-21 with 3 homers (.476/.478/.952)

vs. RHP: 14-for-52 with 0 homers (.269/.316/.365)

Frenchy is playing well, but it’s almost entirely on the shoulders of his performance against southpaws. Francoeur has always hit LHP pretty well, and deserves a role as a platoon outfielder in the majors on that basis alone. And his performance against right-handed pitchers isn’t bad by his standards; that .316 OBP is actually better than his career OBP (.311) against all pitchers. But I’m not about to proclaim him a new man yet. Let’s just enjoy the ride, and be prepared to jump off at any moment.

- The Royals uncharacteristic embrace of the base on balls continues – they rank third in the league in walks drawn. Last night showed the kind of impact patience can have, as four walks in the final two innings were instrumental in scoring all three runs.

I should give a shout-out here to Chris Getz, who is hitting just .242 and has just two extra-base hits all season, but has drawn 10 walks for a solid .347 OBP. Last night, he walked to lead off the eighth and scored the first run, and in the ninth, after the Royals had the tying run gunned down at the plate, Getz drew a second walk to load the bases and set up Melky’s heroics. Neither walk made headlines in the game recap, but the Royals wouldn’t have won without them.

- I’ve had little reason to mention Mitch Maier’s name this season, so let’s give him a nod here. After getting all of five plate appearances in the first 18 games of the season, Maier comes off the bench to pinch-hit for Matt Treanor in the ninth, and immediately rifles a line drive to center. Yost hasn’t pinch-hit much, but that situation screamed for one – Treanor is hitting .132, and Chris Perez’s slider makes him much more effective against right-handed hitters. Yost has made some strange tactical moves of late, but he pushed all the right buttons last night.

- Wednesday’s start was perhaps the quintessential Luke Hochevar performance. He started with five perfect innings, continuing a stretch of 31 consecutive batters retired. Then Michael Brantley singled to lead off the sixth, starting a stretch where 8 of 11 batters would reach base, and Hochevar would balk twice.

There’s a reason why Hochevar, despite a strikeout-to-walk ratio of almost exactly 2-to-1, has a career 5.56 ERA. Take a look at these career numbers:

No one on base: .246/.305/.405

Man on base: .316/.385/.504

With someone base, Hochevar allows opposing hitters to bat 70 points higher, with an OBP 80 points higher, and a slugging average 100 points higher. There’s a reason I’m breaking out the bold – that’s an unbelievable difference. Those are career numbers, in a sample size of over 400 innings, so you can’t dismiss them as a fluke.

And it only feeds the perception that Hochevar’s struggles in the major leagues are not physical. I continue to think better times are ahead for him, and I continue to think Ned Yost is handling him well. But it’s clear that there’s plenty more work to be done.

- Speaking of bad pitchers, Craig Brown’s takedown of Kyle Davies has (deservedly) gotten a lot of publicity the last few days. It’s an impressive piece of work; I think we all vaguely sensed that Davies was a terrible pitcher, but I certainly had no idea that his ERA was historically bad.

I have a few small critiques of Brown’s study. Mainly, I don’t see the point in limiting his study to pitchers who have started in 90% of their appearances. By definition, any pitcher this bad is eventually going to be tried in the bullpen out of desperation; Davies simply hasn’t reached that point of desperation yet.

If you look at all the pitchers in major-league history with 700+ innings pitched, Davies does not have the worst career ERA. He does, however, have the 6th-worst ERA, one slot behind Todd Van Poppel and one slot ahead of Pat Mahomes. That kind of historic suckitude does not require embellishment.

(And Davies’ career ERA of 5.54 is two points lower than Hochevar’s.)

With that being said, I still don’t see a better option for the rotation at this point in time. Vinny Mazzaro was hardly more impressive in his second start in Omaha than in his first. Mike Montgomery and Danny Duffy are close, but rushing them to the majors now smacks of desperation.

As unpalatable as it sounds for a team that’s 12-7 and ostensibly in contention, I think the Royals have little choice other than to continue to start Davies every fifth game. A month from now, they ought to have options for the rotation, maybe several options. But for now, their best option is to sit tight.

Game Not On. (Yet.)

So on Saturday, the Royals beat the Mariners 7-0, as Sean O’Sullivan outdueled Felix Hernandez with five scoreless innings, three middle relievers struck out six batters in the last four innings, the defense made several outstanding plays, Alex Gordon (who is leading the league in hits) and Billy Butler played pinball against King Felix, and the Royals remained tied for the American League lead in wins, as they enter a crucial matchup with the Cleveland Indians on Monday between the two best teams in the AL Central, and literally every word of this sentence would have seemed unthinkable three weeks ago.

The fun came to an end today, when the Royals lost 3-2 after Ned Yost made the questionable decision to send Jeff Francis back out to the mound to start the seventh inning. Justin Smoak and lefty-killer Miguel Olivo followed with singles, and both scored on Brendan Ryan’s single (the only baserunner Blake Wood allowed in 2.2 innings.) Even so, the Royals should have tied the game; a blown umpire call at first base in the eighth inning – Chris Getz was called out even though his foot beat Jamey Wright’s to the bag – cost the Royals a run. In the ninth, after Kila Ka’aihue singled, Jeff Francoeur ripped a one-hopper off Ryan’s glove at shortstop, but Ryan made a fantastic play to recover the ball and nip Francoeur at first. With two out, Betemit drove in Ka’aihue with a single, and pinch-runner Mike Aviles stole second before Brayan Pena grounded out.

The Royals lost, but they fought to their last batter, something they’ve done in 14 of their 15 games this year. The Royals are still 10-5, and what might be even more amazing is that four of their five losses could have gone the other way:

Loss #1: On Opening Day, Alex Gordon’s bid for a walk-off homer with two outs in the ninth goes just foul before he strikes out. It would be the last time Gordon would make an out all season.

Loss #2: The Royals lead the White Sox 6-3 with two outs in the ninth and no one on, before the Sox pull off an improbable four-run rally against Joakim Soria. Even so, the Royals tie the game in the bottom of the ninth, and have the winning run on second base with one out. In the tenth, the Royals have men on first and third with one out, but Chris Sale strikes out Francoeur to keep the winning run from moving up; the Sox score two in the 12th to win.

Loss #3: The Tigers score four runs off Kyle Davies in the first, and put the game away early, 5-2.

Loss #4: The Royals tie the Twins 3-3 in the top of the seventh, and have men on first and third with none out – but Gordon strikes out, Butler pops out, and Francoeur strikes out to kill the rally. The Royals don’t get another baserunner the rest of the game, and the Twins win in the tenth when Ned Yost decides to prove, beyond the shadowiest shadow of a sliver of a doubt, that Robinson Tejeda really has lost five mph off his fastball.

Loss #5: See above.

The Royals have played 15 games, and in just one of them did they not have the winning run at the plate in the ninth inning. That’s pretty damn amazing. Granted, they’ve pulled some victories out of a hat; they could be 7-8 right now. But a few fly balls to the outfield and they could be 13-3 or 14-2 as well.

But the Royals are still 10-5, and if they keep winning two out of every three games, at some point we have to take them seriously. The question is, have we reached that point yet?

You know I’m going to say no, and not only because two years ago, after a sample size that was nearly twice as large, I fell for the mirage – and wound up with rotten eggs on my face when the team went 47-86 the rest of the way. But I will say, this year doesn’t feel like 2009 at all. I didn’t go into the 2009 season with high expectations, but I at least acknowledged the possibility before the season that the team could be competitive if they caught a few breaks.

This year (this article notwithstanding) I had no expectations whatsoever. More to the point – the Royals had no expectations of winning. This team, as it was constructed over the winter, was not built to win. In that sense, this team is very much like the 2003 squad. When that team came out of the chute 9-0, there was a level of cognitive dissonance within the media, both in Kansas City and nationally. There was simply no explanation for how a team that looked so bad on paper could be playing so well, and no one knew what to make of it.

It turns out that the 9-0 start wasn’t real, but it wasn’t exactly a fraud either. Let’s try to figure out where the 2011 Royals fit on the continuum.

Pythagorean Theorem: One of the fundamental axioms of baseball analysis – it was discovered and named by Bill James in the early 1980s – is that there is a very strong correlation between a team’s win-loss record and its runs/runs allowed ratio. Specifically, the ratio between a team’s wins and its losses is approximately the square of the ratio between its runs scored and runs allowed (hence the term “Pythagorean.”)

We can apply that theorem to the Royals to see whether their 10-5 record is the product of good fortune or a true reflection of how they’ve played. The Royals have a .667 winning percentage. Based on their run totals – they’ve scored 82 runs and allowed 63 – their winning percentage should be only .629.

That’s not an indictment of the team. Put it this way – the Royals are currently on a 108-win pace. Based on their run totals, they should “only” be on pace to win 102 games.

I’d take that.

Closely allied with how a team performs compared to its Pythagorean expectation is how well the team plays in one-run games. A team that wins a lot of one-run games is going to win more games than you’d expect from their run totals. With their loss today, the Royals are 4-2 in one-run games – and they’re 6-3 in games decided by more than one run. They’re 2-2 in extra-inning games. They’ve only played two blowouts (games decided by 5+ runs), and won both of them. While the Royals may be playing five miles over their heads, there’s simply no evidence of that based on the scores of their games.

Second-Order Wins: A team’s Pythagorean record is what Baseball Prospectus calls “First-Order Wins”, meaning a team’s record once the first layer of luck is stripped out. Second-Order Wins strips out another layer of luck, looking at how a team scores their runs. If a team is scoring a lot of runs because they’re hitting really well with runners in scoring position, that’s unlikely to continue, and their offense is likely to slow down. If a pitching staff is stranding a lot of baserunners, eventually the debt will come due.

When you mine the data this deep, the Royals do come out looking fairly lucky. The Royals are 10-5, but they actually have fewer hits than their opponents (152 to 148), and have been out-homered, 16-11. They do have more doubles (33-29), more steals (19-8), and shocking, their biggest advantage is in walks (57-41).

Overall, the Royals are hitting .275/.341/.408. Their opponents are hitting .272/.323/.421. The Royals have a slight offensive advantage thanks to their higher OBP (!), and we also have to give them a significant edge on the basepaths. But even so, those numbers are the mark of an 8-7 team, not a 10-5 one.

Strength of Schedule: Baseball Prospectus also has “Third-Order Wins”, which adjust a team’s record based on the strength of the teams they have faced so far. Of course, if it’s too early in the season to know how good the Royals are, it’s too early in the season to know how good their opponents are.

But if there’s one thing we know, it’s that the Mariners are a pretty awful baseball team, a team that without Felix Hernandez and Michael Pineda might be historically bad. Their offense already was historically bad last year – the Mariners scored the fewest runs of any AL team in a full season since the invention of the DH. This year’s offense might not be any better; they scored nine runs in four games against the Royals, and three of those came in the ninth inning on Friday night in the kind of weather conditions last seen in the third installment of Pirates of the Caribbean.

This series aside, the Royals went 7-3 against the three teams widely considered to be the three contenders in the AL Central, and the Angels, a team that at least one pundit (read: me) picked to win the AL West, and a team that is 9-2 since they left Kansas City. Frankly, the best case you can make on behalf of the Royals is that the Tigers, White Sox, and (especially) the Twins don’t look nearly as formidable as they did three weeks ago. Of course, the best case against the Royals is that the Indians have the best record in baseball at 11-4, which should serve as a reminder that it’s way too early to be taking records seriously.

Sustainability of Performance: This, ultimately, is all that matters. Can the Royals, on an individual level, continue to play this well? Let’s look at the players who are most responsible for this start:

Alex Gordon: He’s hitting .365/.394/.540 so far, and no, he’s not going to hit .365 all season. But if his breakout is for real, he might slug .540. And if he starts to draw more walks, he might maintain a .394 OBP. I have no doubt that I’m jumping to conclusions with Gordon’s hot start – I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for four years, and I’m not going to let it slip out of my hands now.

I think Gordon is going to cool down. But I think we have to upgrade, perhaps significantly, our expectations of what Gordon will hit this season. (And, perhaps more importantly, what he will hit in 2012 and 2013 as well.)

Jeff Francoeur: He’s hitting .328/.349/.517 so far, and no, he’s not going to hit .328 all season. He’s not going to slug .517 all season. Frankly, even projecting a .349 OBP for him seems overly optimistic, and a .349 OBP is nothing to brag about to begin with.

I’ll be honest: I have no idea what to expect from Francoeur. As the Kansas City Star reported a few days ago, there is some data to suggest Francoeur is succeeding with a different, more patient approach at the plate. But those of you who have followed the Jeff Francoeur Saga over the years know that this isn’t the first time, or even the fifth time, he’s convinced people that he’s about to turn a corner. It’s not a fulfilling answer, but saying “we just don’t know” is the only honest answer to give.

Billy Butler: He won’t hit .352/.470/.537, but he’s going to hit, and he might well have his best season yet.

Wilson Betemit: He won’t hit .371/.452/.571, but he can hit, and if he does he’s not going to remain a part-time player. His impact has been limited by batting only 41 times in 15 games so far, so even if he cools down he could continue to maintain his value.

Those four hitters – who fortuitously all bat in the middle of the lineup – are the only four hitters who are playing above expectations. Melky Cabrera has been nothing special at .279/.286/.397; Chris Getz, after a hot start, is hitting .269/.333/.288. Alcides Escobar might not continue to make one Gold Glove-caliber play at shortstop per game, but at the same time he can probably improve on his .233/.270/.267 line so far this year. Brayan Pena and Matt Treanor are hitting a combined .200/.297/.327. Mike Aviles has recovered from a tough start, but he’s still hitting .200/.250/.450. And Ka’aihue, most troublingly, is hitting .174/.304/.283.

I have no doubt that Gordon, Francoeur, Butler, and Betemit will cool off. But at the same time, they can expect better production from shortstop, second base, and DH. If either Getz or Ka’aihue don’t pick it up, they’ll see their playing time eaten away by Betemit, with Aviles picking up the slack. They’re not going to continue to score 5.5 runs a game. But they may have a less bumpy descent than you’d think.

On the pitching side of things…

Aaron Crow, Jeremy Jeffress, and Tim Collins have combined for 23.1 innings, and have allowed just 15 hits, walked 11, and struck out 29. They’ve allowed just three runs. That level of performance is, obviously, unsustainable.

But at the same time, none of the three are doing this with smoke and mirrors. They all have power stuff, and they’re all striking guys out in bunches. There’s no position where a rookie is more likely to find immediate success than in the bullpen, so you can’t use their inexperience against them. The walks have to concern you, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that, if they stay healthy, all three pitchers will continue to find success all season.

Kanekoa Texeira and Nate Adcock have combined to throw 8.2 innings, they’ve allowed 14 hits and two walks, and have not a single strikeout – but they’ve allowed just one run. Some serious regression is due here – but at the same time, both pitchers are largely garbage-time guys whose performances are unlikely to decide a ballgame one way or the other.

And that leaves Joakim Soria and Robinson Tejeda, who have allowed nine runs in 13 innings, allowed 18 hits and six walks, and struck out just four. Tejeda is now on the DL, having been replaced by Blake Wood, who is supposed to be throwing harder and better than he did as a rookie a year ago. Soria is a concern given his lack of strikeouts as well as his performance. I reached a personal DEFCON low with Soria after he nearly blew another big ninth-inning lead on Friday, but that was before I was aware of just how bad the conditions were at the time. I can see how it might be hard to throw strikes while trying to pitch through an icy monsoon.

If Soria is healthy – and we’ll have a better answer for that question after his next few outings – I think the bullpen will continue to be a strength of this team. I expected it to be one before the season, and I certainly have seen no reason to change my mind.

As for the rotation…

Jeff Francis has a 3.00 ERA, and in 27 innings has walked 3 batters. If he can keep throwing that many strikes, he’ll be effective, but 1) he won’t be this effective, not in the American League, not with his velocity; and 2) he won’t keep walking a batter per nine innings.

Bruce Chen had a 4.17 ERA last season. I love Bruce Chen, but nothing in his peripheral results or in his repertoire made you think that’s sustainable. This year, his ERA is 2.61. You do the math.

Luke Hochevar has a 4.21 ERA, and I do think that’s sustainable. He has four walks and 16 strikeouts on the year; his bugaboo has been the six homers he’s surrendered in 26 innings, and that’s a little fluky.

Kyle Davies, on the other hand, has allowed 14 runs in 14 innings. He’s not that bad, and if he is, the Royals will soon replace him with someone who isn’t that bad.

The bottom line here is that neither Francis nor Chen can keep this up, and now that the Royals need a fifth starter every fifth game, they’re not going to get five shutout innings from that slot either. The rotation’s ERA as a whole is 3.97, and that’s not sustainable. I’d be happy with a 50-point jump; it might be a lot higher. Let me put it this way: right now, who starts Game 1 of the playoffs for the Royals?

Future Roster Changes: The answer to that question, in all seriousness, is probably Mike Montgomery. If you could see the future and told me that the Royals will make the playoffs this October, and I had to wager on who started Game 1 of the ALDS, I’d pick Monty. (And after he struck out 7 of the 16 batters he faced in Triple-A on Saturday, Danny Duffy might be my pick for Game 2.)

That’s what you have to hope for if you’re a Royals fan. The offense will regress, although I’ve seen enough to posit that it’s a better offense than we thought it would be. The bullpen, which has a 3.28 collective ERA right now, will regress, but will probably still be one of the better units in the American League. But the rotation is going to regress a lot – unless and until reinforcements arrive. However, if the Royals can just find a way to channel 2003 until mid-season, and dodge the laws of probability long enough to remain in contention at the All-Star Break, then unlike in 2003, they will have the opportunity to fix the team’s biggest weakness from within when the second half kicks off.

We might not even have to wait that long. Everyone obsesses about the Super-Two Deadline, but the more important deadline has already passed. Every one of the Royals’ vaunted prospects who are in the minors today are now guaranteed to be under club control through 2017. If Montgomery were called up tomorrow, the Royals would get almost seven full seasons out of him. He might get arbitration a year early, and in a best/worst case scenario that could cost the Royals more than $10 million. (That’s what it cost the Giants when Tim Lincecum qualified for arbitration prior to the 2010 season – after he had just won back-to-back Cy Young Awards.)

But if the Royals maintain their hot start, and the front office decides to go for it, and they deem Montgomery or Moustakas or any of a half-dozen other guys are ready…they shouldn’t hold back. If the future is now, then The Future Is Now.

The Verdict: Eight years ago, in response to the Royals’ 9-0 and 16-3 start, I researched the impact that a hot start had on a team’s final projected record. You can read the results here. Even when the Royals were 16-3, their projected finish was 85-77, a disappointing finish given their record but a reasonable one for a team that had just lost 100 games the year before.

Prior to this season, the simple formula I introduced in the article above would have projected the Royals to go 72-90 this season. Based on their 10-5 start, we can now update our projection for the Royals this year all the way to 79-83. The 10-5 start has been worth about seven wins – four of those are already in the bank (because the team should have won only six of their first 15 games, instead of 10), and three of those are a reflection of the fact that the team might actually be better than we thought.

If you projected the Royals to win 69 games before the season, as I did, then you would project them to go 76-86 now. That’s not good…but on the other hand, it would be the team’s best record since 2003.

So it’s definitely not on. Not yet. But it’s not completely off either. Stay tuned.

(Also, stay tuned to 810 WHB this Thursday at 6. Still finalizing the details, but I should be on the air one way or the other.)

Royals Today: 4/12/11.

The first week-and-a-half of the season has been a little surprising, on a professional and a personal level. The professional surprise is that the Royals have continued to play well, thanks to some surprising offensive performances, less-putrid-than-expected performances from the rotation, and some terrific work by the rookies in the bullpen.

The personal surprise is that unlike in 2003, when the Royals started 9-0 and 16-3, or even just two years ago, when the Royals started 18-11, I find myself remarkably even-keeled about the Royals’ start. Blasé, even. It’s not that I don’t care if the Royals do well or not; in fact, I think it’s the exact opposite. What made 2003 so much fun at the start was that it was completely inexplicable. Even eight years later, I still have no idea how that team played so well. Runelvys Hernandez was your Opening Day starter. Angel Berroa was the Rookie of the Year. Aaron Guiel was an above-average right fielder. Darrell May was a very good starting pitcher all year. Jose Lima was effective.

Going into that season, there was not only no reason to think the Royals would be any good – they had just lost 100 games for the first time the year before – but there was no reason to think their fortunes were going to change any time soon. According to Baseball America, the top prospect in the system going into the 2003 season was Zack Greinke…but Berroa was #2. Jimmy Gobble was #3; Ken Harvey was #4. Mike MacDougal, Alexis Gomez, Colt Griffin, Kyle Snyder, Andres Blanco, and Jeremy Hill rounded out the Top 10.

Needless to say, when the Royals started the season with a nine-game winning streak, I couldn’t help but get caught up in it. Why wouldn’t I? As a Royals fan, what did I have to lose? And what else did I have to get excited about?

The 2009 start seemed a little more real – ahem – because the Royals were coming off a 75-87 season that included an 18-8 September. Also, there seemed to be more substance to the team’s performance; Zack Greinke was the best pitcher in baseball, Gil Meche and Kyle Davies and Brian Bannister were pitching well, and even Jose Guillen was hitting well enough to make his contract tolerable. Luke Hochevar was even dominating down in Omaha, and figured to get called up soon. It was all a mirage – well, everything but Greinke pitching at a Cy Young caliber. But it was hard to hold back, precisely because it looked like Dayton Moore had been building with 2009 in mind. (Why else would he have signed Willie Bloomquist and Kyle Farnsworth?) If the Royals’ front office expected to win, and the Royals were winning, who was I to argue?

But this year, it’s so much easier to take a wait-and-see approach to this team. Having the best farm system in baseball affords us that luxury. The expectation that the Royals are building to something truly meaningful starting in 2012 takes some of the pressure off being a fan in 2011. As Joe Sheehan succinctly put it in his Newsletter before the season, “All things considered, this is going to be the worst Royals team for the rest of the decade.” At this point, we’re playing with house money. If the Royals continue to play well and stay in contention, it’s gravy – but either way, I’m still optimistic about the future.

- That doesn’t mean I can’t have concerns about certain individual performances. Robinson Tejeda is showing reduced velocity this year, and while it hasn’t shown up on the scoreboard, it has certainly manifested itself in the box score – Tejeda has struck out just one of the 22 batters he’s faced this season, after striking out just over a quarter of batters faced (184 of 728) since joining the Royals in 2008. Tejeda has compensated by throwing more off-speed stuff – in particular, he’s using his change-up a lot more – but there’s only so much adjusting you can do when your fastball, according to Fangraphs, goes from 94 to 89.

I’m nearly as concerned about Joakim Soria. Unlike Tejeda, there have been no official proclamations about Soria’s velocity. Per Fangraphs, Soria’s fastball has dropped a tick; he’s averaged 89.6 mph this season after averaging between 90.9 and 91.9 each of the last four years. However, this fine article by Mike Fast at Baseball Prospectus last week points out that fastballs are typically 1 to 1.5 mph slower in April than they are in mid-summer, likely due to the cooler temperatures at the start of the year. (And according to the article, Soria was actually throwing harder in Spring Training than he was last September.)

But while Soria’s velocity loss may not be meaningful, it’s been accompanied by a degradation in performance. I’m not talking about his 6.75 ERA in all of seven innings, which is pretty meaningless. I’m talking about the fact that, like Tejeda, Soria is not missing any bats this season. He’s struck out only two of the 28 batters he’s faced, and batters have swung and missed at just 4% of his pitches this season, compared to his career average of 11%. Some stats, like ERA, take a long time to normalize, and seven innings of data mean nothing. But for stats like strikeout rate and swinging strike percentage, the data normalizes much quicker, and small samples are more meaningful. I’m not saying that there’s something wrong with Soria; he did strike out Miguel Cabrera on a nasty hook on Sunday. But I am saying that I’ll be watching him closely going forward.

- I gave some love to Alex Gordon last time out, and he’s continuing to hit – he actually leads the league in hits with 15. The numbers corroborate the theory that he’s adjusted his approach to favor solid contact over a swing-for-the-fences approach; he’s hitting singles but only has one home run. That tradeoff is more than worth it if he keeps hitting like he has, but more importantly, it’s a lot easier for a line-drive hitter to add power to his game than for a pure power hitter to start hitting for average. Gordon’s not suddenly going to turn into Ichiro Suzuki; he has the kind of power you can’t teach, and if he keeps making solid contact, he’ll hit 20 homers just by accident.

- I think it’s kind of ridiculous to bury Mike Aviles on the basis of six games, no matter how poorly he played – both at the plate and in the field – in those six games. Aviles’ career line is .293/.323/.420, and he hit .304/.335/.413 last season coming off Tommy John surgery. He hit six homers last September; it’s absurd to think that he’s suddenly forgotten how to hit on the basis of one bad week.

That said, I can’t say that I’m upset to Aviles on the bench if it means more playing time for Wilson Betemit. I may be Betemit’s biggest fan, but if I am, it’s not because of what I think Betemit can be, it’s simply because of what I think Betemit is right now. He went 4-for-4 with a walk on Sunday, and is hitting .381/.500/.571 in six games. Since joining the Royals last year, he has a line of .303/.387/.515, in 90 games – not an insubstantial sample size. And he plays third base. He’s not a good third baseman; he’s not even a mediocre one. But my God, how bad do you have to play third base to not have value when you can hit as well as Betemit does? Ryan Braun bad? Butch Hobson-adjusting-the-bone-chips-in-his-elbow-after-every-throw bad?

The solution here would be to get Betemit and Aviles in the lineup…except that the Royals want to see what they have in Chris Getz once and for all. And given that 1) Getz is the youngest of the three players; 2) he is the best defender and the best baserunner of the three; and 3) he’s hitting .345 in the early going and has drawn five walks already, well, it’s hard to fault them.

The Royals have found themselves in an unfamiliar situation – they have three deserving players to fill two positions. They have – wait for it – depth. They have options. If Getz reverts back to his 2010 form, they can replace him painlessly. If Aviles has suddenly lost it, or if Betemit goes back to making error a day, they don’t have to put up with it. This isn’t a bad thing, so long as the Royals give each of them sufficient playing time to properly evaluate them.

I don’t expect Aviles’ benching to be any kind of permanent; I think we’re going to see Aviles and Betemit alternate at third base, with Aviles occasionally spelling Getz at second. I think Betemit will get the occasional start at 1B or DH, replacing Ka’aihue against a tough left-hander. (Update: With LHP Brian Duensing pitching for Minnesota, tonight’s lineup does in fact have Betemit in the lineup for Ka’aihue…but Betemit’s at third, and Aviles is the DH. I guess Yost is even more dissatisfied with Aviles’ defense than I thought.) As the season progresses and the Royals play 15 days in a row, Getz or Aviles may give Escobar a day off at shortstop. And in the end, I think that by the end of May all three guys will be playing at least half the time. With any luck, by the time Mike Moustakas is deemed ready, the Royals will have used their time to figure out who he’ll be replacing. If Betemit continues to hit, they might even be able to fetch something of substance for him in trade.

- While Gordon is hitting .357/.400/.548, and Betemit is hitting .381/.500/.471, neither one of them is leading the team in any of the triple-slash categories. That’s because Billy Butler, with a .394/.512/.667 line, leads the team in all three.

I confess to taking Butler for granted a bit myself. We all know he’s a preternaturally talented hitter, but because he’s limited to first base and because he hasn’t shown elite power yet, it’s been easy to focus on the things he can’t do (like stay out of the double play) instead of the one thing he can, which is to strike a baseball with extreme malice.

Over the last two seasons, Butler has hit .309/.375/.480 and averaged 48 doubles and 18 homers a season. If that’s all he is, that’s a hell of a player, a poor man’s Edgar Martinez. But it’s not unreasonable to hope he could be something more. He is still just 24, after all. (Okay, he turns 25 on Monday. But still.)

In the small sample of at-bats I’ve seen from him this year, it seemed to me that he was elevating the ball more. He’s hit two homers already. One was a 3-1 fastball from a lefty (Chris Sale) who touches 100 mph, and supplied all the power. But the other was off a right-hander, a 2-1 fastball that was on the outside corner and a little up, and Butler simply powered the ball a little to the right of dead center field. It was an impressive swing.

So I checked the numbers to see whether Butler was in fact hitting the ball in the air more, and…uh, yeah. His groundball/flyball ratio has hovered between 1.37 and 1.43 in his four seasons in the majors; his ratio this year is 0.83. His groundball%, which has always been between 47 and 49%, is at 33%. And he has yet to hit into a double play.

It’s nine games, and a sample size of just 30 balls put in play. But those are dramatically different numbers than what we’ve seen from Butler in the past. Keep a close eye on how many balls Butler hits on the ground over the next few weeks. If he’s learned to avoid topping the ball while still making hard contact, well, let’s just say that five-year contract would look even nicer than it did when he signed it.

- Luke Hochevar has made three starts so far, and the early returns are looking good. He’s walked just two batters and struck out 12 in 19 innings. On the other hand, he’s given up six homers already.

Hochevar’s groundball/flyball ratio, which has slowly ticked down throughout his career, has dropped further, to 1.17, with a 42% groundball rate. That’s roughly league average. His home run rate is nowhere close to league average, though – one-quarter of the flyballs hit off of Hochevar have gone over the fence, compared to a league average of something like 11%.

Hochevar has been maddening throughout his career in part because his luck is so bad at times that it seems like he’s less unlucky than simply cursed. Two years ago, he threw 143 innings, had a fine strikeout to walk ratio of 106 to 46, and got groundballs 47% of the time – and somehow wound up with a 6.55 ERA. His xFIP – one of the best ways to measure what a pitcher’s ERA “should” be, assuming normal luck – was 4.28.

Maybe Hochevar is one of those weird pitchers for whom the numbers don’t always even out. But for now, I can only assume that he won’t continue to give up two homers a start. If you just look at Hochevar’s xFIP for his entire career, the peaks and valleys even out and you see a pretty steady improvement – from 5.20 in his cup of coffee in 2007, to 4.64, to 4.28, to 4.09 last year. This year, he’s at 3.94.

Which is to say, there’s no reason why he can’t be an above-average starter in the major leagues. No reason except that the laws of probability seem to conspire against him.

- Finally, this wouldn’t be a Royals recap without some discussion of the minor leaguers. The minor leagues just got underway last Thursday, and it’s way too early to make even premature conclusions. The only thing that really matters at this point is whether everyone is healthy or not.

On that note, the Royals got some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that Brett Eibner, a highly-regarded college outfielder who was drafted in the second round last year (and got $1.2 million to sign), and who homered in his first pro game, injured his thumb diving for a ball in his second game. Apparently there’s ligament damage; I don’t know what’s the expected recovery time for this injury, but I’d be shocked if he’s back inside of several weeks, and I wouldn’t be shocked if he’s out for a couple of months. For a guy who’s already 22, who has a ton of tools but also needs some reps – he was a two-way player in college who many teams wanted as a pitcher – this is a tough break.

The good news is that, despite loads of evidence to the contrary, we can now state with some certainty that Noel Arguelles does, in fact, exist. The Cuban bonus baby finally took a mound last night in Wilmington, about 16 months after he signed a 5-year, $6.9 million deal with the Royals. He pitched well, throwing four shutout innings, allowing just two hits and no walks. However, he struck out just one batter. J.J. Cooper of Baseball America was in attendance and reported that Arguelles was throwing in the 88-90 range, mixing in a slow curve for strikes.

That may be the best we can ask for at this point. Arguelles was touted as a southpaw who could throw 94 when he signed, which made him the Target to Aroldis Chapman’s Neiman Marcus. But after missing a full season to shoulder woes and finally going under the knife, it’s not surprising that he’s lost 5 mph on his fastball. Even at that velocity, as a lefty with command of secondary stuff, he’s a definite prospect. But you don’t give seven million dollars to amateur pitchers who throw 89. He’s back on the prospect map, but we have to hope that his fastball velocity rises with the temperature. If it does, well, they say you can never have too much left-handed pitching, but the Royals might put that maxim to the test more than any other team in recent memory.

Royals Today: 4/5/11.

The Royals began the 2000 season with a respectable 4-3 record, and then things got crazy. In the last game of a four-game set with the Twins, the Royals held a 5-3 lead going into the ninth. This was back in the days when the Royals thought that closers were born, not made, and so they had paid real U.S. legal tender to Ricky Bottalico to be their closer. On this day, naturally, Bottalico blew the two-run lead in the ninth. (The Royals learned their lesson so well that after the season, they made Roberto Hernandez the focal point of the trade return they got for Johnny Damon.)

But then something funny happened. Damon led off the bottom of the ninth with a home run, and the Royals won, 6-5. The next night, the Orioles came to town; the Royals erased a 5-2 lead with three runs in the eighth, and after both teams struggled to score a putaway run, the Royals finally broke through in the bottom of the 12th, when with one out and Joe Randa on first base, backup catcher Brian Johnson went deep.

And then the next night, the Orioles held a 6-0 lead going into the bottom of the seventh, when the Royals broke through for four runs. The score remained 6-4 until the bottom of the ninth, when Gregg Zaun walked, Mark Quinn doubled to put two runners in scoring position…and Rey Sanchez lofted a flyball that snuck inside the fair pole in left field, prompting Denny Mathews to semi-famously exclaim “What is going on?” The Royals had won three straight games on a walk-off homer. In fact, these three games – I’m not making this up – are what brought the phrase “walk-off” into the national baseball lexicon. The term had been around for years – Dennis Eckersley originated it, I believe, calling it “a walk-off piece” when Kirk Gibson hit a particular home run off of him – but after these three games, ESPN.com started using the term to describe what the Royals had done, and the term has been with us ever since.

The next night, after Bottalico blew another save in the ninth, the Royals didn’t end it with a homer. No, with two out and one on in the bottom of the inning, Carlos Beltran ended the game with a lousy single. Four straight walk-off wins, three on a homer, and the Royals were 8-3 and tied for first place. They were the talk of baseball as they headed out on a nine-game road trip.

They lost all nine games.

They would eventually recover enough to finish with a respectable 77-85 record, but they fell 10.5 games back of the White Sox by June 18, and their deficit was in double digits the rest of the season. Which is to say, it was a pretty typical Royals campaign.

By all means, enjoy the series win against the Angels. Just don’t imbue it with undue meaning. Maybe it’s best Alex Gordon’s slice went foul on Opening Day, because if it hadn’t, the Royals would have swept a series against the Angels with three walk-off homers and a two-run rally in the eighth inning, and far too many people would be putting far too much emphasis on the first one-fortieth of the season.

Winning three games in the fashion that the Royals did might be the sign of a plucky team, a gritty team, a never-say-die team. But it’s not the sign of a great team. The discerning mark of a great team isn’t winning games in its final at-bat – it’s bludgeoning the opponents so that the outcome of the game isn’t in doubt by the time their final at-bat comes around. If the Royals had won these games by the score of 10-3, 7-0, and 12-2, we might want to consider recalibrating our opinion of the Royals a little. But the way they won these games says less about the Royals than it does about the Angels.

As I said before the season on our podcast (please listen!) – while making the case for the Angels as (ahem) my pick to win the AL West – the worry for the Angels was that their bullpen had one quality reliever in Jordan Walden. Walden was dominant in the series; the other Angel relievers would have fit right in with the Royals’ bullpen from a decade ago. The Angels led three of the four games in the middle of the eighth, and were tied in the fourth game – and they came within a few feet of getting swept.

Right now, the Royals are pretty much what we thought they were – a team capable of keeping games close, a team that might have a really good bullpen, but not a team that’s going to win the AL Central.

That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the fact that we’re leading the AL Central at the moment. Let’s just keep some perspective.

- Speaking of Alex Gordon…I tried my best to remain philosophical after his drive for a walk-off homer on Opening Day went just foul, capping an 0-for-5, three-strikeout game that already had people writing off his performance in Arizona as another spring tease.

I didn’t want to place any great meaning on that one at-bat either way, because let’s face it, there have been moments in the past when Gordon hit dramatic home runs that made you want to think he was finally ready to bust out…and nothing happened. Last year, on April 21, Gordon hit a two-out game-winning home run off a left-hander in the tenth inning in Toronto. He was so affected by this that he went 4 for his next 21, and was then optioned to Omaha.

On July 30, you might recall – I actually called his shot on Twitter, and was the most surprised person in the ballpark when he actually hit it – Gordon went deep in the exact same situation he found himself in this Opening Day – two on, two out in the ninth and the Royals losing. Over his next eight games, he hit .292 and hit three more homers, and you thought maybe, just maybe, this was the Gordon in the catalog. He then hit .215/.324/.323 the rest of the season, with just three more homers in 47 games.

If Gordon is going to fulfill even a fraction of his potential at this late date, it’s not going to happen with one swing, or one series, or even a month of series. It’s going to happen the way life does: one day at a time. After his Opening Day fiasco, he went 6-for-14, and notably with only one strikeout. I’m not a scout, but one swing in particular stood out – his third hit of the game on Sunday. With two strikes on him and facing a left-hander, Gordon took a pitch on the outer half of the plate and didn’t try to pull it, but went with the pitch and sent a two-hopper through the infield up the middle.

Ryan Lefebvre and Frank White made note of the fact that Gordon’s swing was “all hands” – there was very little weight shift in his swing, a swing that was more befitting of Ichiro Suzuki than Jim Thome. I’m not saying it was better or worse – but it was certainly different than the Alex Gordon we’ve grown to have a love-hate relationship with. At this point, I’ll take different. It might be months before we can render a final verdict.

- This means nothing, but I don’t get a chance to say this very often, so humor me: the Royals lead the American League in walks drawn, with 19. Of course, they are also one of only two teams that have played four games, but still: humor me.

Ten of those 19 walks came on Sunday, and eight of those ten came from the ninth inning on. On Opening Day, four of the Royals’ six walks came in the eighth or ninth inning. Which, again, is to say that it’s not clear whether all those walks are a reflection of the Royals’ new-found patience or simply a reflection that the Angels’ bullpen sucks.

- I didn’t really expect the Royals to come back, not down two runs headed into the bottom of the ninth on Sunday. That said, having Alex Gordon, Billy Butler, and Kila Ka’aihue due up to start the inning was as good a trio as we’ve seen in a very long time. It’s not simply the caliber of hitter that each one is, but the fact that all three of them are perfectly willing to take a walk to get a rally started.

One of the more maddening aspects of being a Royals fan the last, oh, 20 years or so is that the offense has never been built to take advantage of a closer with command issues. On this day, though, when Fernando Rodney could not find the strike zone, the Royals were more than happy to take advantage. Gordon walked on five pitches. Butler hit a screaming line drive – easily the best-hit ball of the inning – that Maicer Izturis snared with a vertical leap that would have stood out at a scouting combine. Ka’aihue walked on five pitches. Jeff Francoeur walked on five pitches – again, maybe we should be blaming the Angels instead of crediting the Royals.

And then Wilson Betemit, who’s not a free swinger by any means, swung away on the first pitch. After a pitcher has issued multiple walks, it’s not uncommon for him to groove a fastball on the first pitch just to try to get something over, so with the tying run in scoring position, this was a reasonable gamble for a hitter who knows the strike zone. It worked when the ball snuck under Vernon Wells glove for the game-tying double.

It was the second time in the series that Rodney couldn’t find the strike zone, and (for you fantasy players) he’s probably going to lose the closer’s job to Walden by Memorial Day. More than anyone else, he instigated the comeback – but the Royals didn’t turn their noses down at his favor. One of the reasons I’m not down on the 2011 Royals as much as some other people is precisely because the heart of the Royals’ order features three guys who are more than happy to draw walks and let one of their teammates be the hero. Two years ago, the 3-4-5 hitters on any given night might have been Jose Guillen, Mike Jacobs, and Miguel Olivo. If they had stepped in against Rodney on Sunday, the rally might never have gotten started.

- It’s hard to make a judgment about a starting pitcher from just one start, and we didn’t see anything truly surprising in the first spin of the rotation.

Luke Hochevar pitched pretty well on Opening Day, but as usual the results were a little less than you’d expect. He threw strikes (no walks, 5 K’s), and kept the ball down (13 groundball outs), but still gave up two homers – including one to Jeff Mathis – and made a dumb throwing error on a beautiful bunt by Peter Bourjos that directly set up the Angels’ final run.

Kyle Davies, as usual, was passable but not effective (4 runs in 5.1 innings, seven hits and two walks). Bruce Chen was terrible, but there were some extenuating circumstances there – the wind was gusting up to 40 mph, to the point where the Royals had to move their TV cameras out of their usual perch in center field. The environment was tough for any pitcher, but you couldn’t pick a pitcher less suited for a day like Sunday than Chen, one of the most extreme flyball pitchers in baseball. I’d give him a mulligan for that.

The pleasant surprise was Jeff Francis, who came into the season with some major questions about his shoulder and his fastball velocity. His shoulder was sturdy enough for him to throw seven outstanding innings, but his velocity has to be a concern. According to Fangraphs, his fastball averaged just 84.8 mph on Friday – he was at 87.2 mph last year, and has never averaged less than 86 mph in a season. His curveball and changeup were also a couple mph below their career norms. It’s just one start, and it might be a park error – last year, fastball readings at Kauffman Stadium were artificially inflated by 1-2 mph. But it bears watching closely.

- Two words: Tim Collins. Three letters and a punctuation mark: OMG!

Seriously, I knew Seabiscuit was going to be good. I just didn’t know he was going to be this good. And I knew he was going to be fun to watch. But I had no idea he’d be so much fun to watch.

I say this with all seriousness: if you don’t love watching Collins throw 92-93 mph from a 5’6” frame, with a wacky delivery that hides the ball so well you’d think he’s throwing from behind a screen, mixing in big-breaking curveballs and a changeup that just disappears – well, you don’t love baseball, my friend. Or America. Or apple pie, you stupid Commie.

Oh, and on Sunday Collins became the first Royal since 2007 to throw at least three innings in relief, with no walks and at least five strikeouts. Not bad for the second appearance of his career. The last Royal reliever to make such an impression on me after just two appearances in the majors was Joakim Soria.

- Speaking of relievers…I still don’t like what the Royals are doing with Aaron Crow, in large part because I’m not sure what they’re doing with Crow. Is he a reliever for good? Is he a candidate to step into the rotation later this year? Next year?

But it would be foolish of me to not acknowledge that he’s looked pretty damn impressive so far. In particular, that slider is just…I’m not sure it’s illegal, but it’s definitely immoral. Crow has faced seven right-handed batters so far. One walked, and another managed to ground out to the shortstop. The other five struck out, including Howie Kendrick, the first batter Crow faced in the majors, with a runner in scoring position, and Torii Hunter twice, once with the bases loaded and one out.

It’s that very dominance which makes me wonder if the Royals aren’t leaving value on the table by moving him to the bullpen. But for now, I’ll concede that he makes the Royals a better team. Starting Crow in the major leagues despite no history of success in the minors was very much a scout-based decision by the Royals. If we’ve learned one thing in the past year, it’s that when it comes to minor leaguers, the Royals do know a thing or two about scouting.

- Are the Royals trying to make Jarrod Dyson into the new Herb Washington? That’s not the worst idea in the world, honestly – he pinch-ran for Brayan Pena after Pena singled in the eighth inning on Sunday, and three pitches later he was standing at third base. He’s appeared in three of the four games – all three times as a pinch-runner, staying in to play defense on one occasion. I’m just curious to see how many games he’ll appear in before he gets his first at-bat.

(Incidentally, despite stealing second and third base with one out, Dyson was stranded and did not score. The Royals have nine steals in 10 attempts – but not one of those nine steals led to a run that wouldn’t have scored anyway. The only benefit they’ve gotten from their running game is that two of the stolen bases may have kept the Royals out of a double play. Stolen bases are nice, but they remain vastly overrated by the Royals.)

- The defense, in general, looks a lot better. Alcides Escobar hasn’t hit worth a damn yet, but he’s made several plays on balls that Yuniesky Betancourt would have waved at like they’re his next-door neighbor. Francoeur nailed a runner at the plate. This still isn’t a great defense, but at least they’re not the embarrassment to baseball that they’ve been in recent years.

Chris Getz has made some fine plays and executed the perfect relay throw that nailed Alberto Callaspo at the plate on Sunday. (Callaspo failed to score from second on a double, which isn’t as bizarre as it sounds. For one, he had to hold up to see if the ball would be caught. For two, the ball ricocheted off the wall directly into Melky Cabrera’s bare hand, allowing him to make a quick throw in. And for three, as we all remember, Callaspo moves so slowly that Bud Selig just appointed him to a committee.)

- This entire series was a vindication of a lot of head-scratching moves the Royals made with their roster. Crow pitched great. Matt Freaking Treanor had a walk-off homer and a game-tying RBI single with two outs in the eighth. Treanor also made two separate plays at the plate, conceding nothing to two baserunners who were barreling in on him but were dead to rights.

Which just goes to show: anything can happen in four games. I’m not saying you should ignore how well the Royals have played so far; on the contrary, this is one of the more likeable rosters the Royals have had in years, and there’s a lot to be excited about for the future. But there’s a difference between “likeable” and “good”. I fully expect the Royals to bridge the gap between those two by the end of the year. Just don’t expect every series between now and then to go as well as this one did.

Not A Prediction.

Just to be clear: I am not predicting any miracles for the Royals this season. I’ll save my playoff predictions for sometime down the road, maybe even next year. But you’d have to be crazy to predict that the Royals will win the AL Central in 2011. So I’m not predicting that. I’m predicting that they’ll go 69-93, and even that is overly optimistic for most people, to suggest that the Royals will have a better record than they had last season, after they traded their best position player and best pitcher in the off-season.

I’m not predicting that Luke Hochevar is going to prove his doubters wrong by giving the Royals 200 innings with an ERA in the mid-3s. I mean, sure, it could happen. Hochevar was the #1 overall pick in the draft for a reason. He has four good pitches, and has just lacked the confidence in his stuff to put batters away in the past. And last season, he quietly put up some good peripherals – he had more than twice as many strikeouts (76) as walks (37), and surrendered just 9 homers in 110 innings. After Ned Yost gave him a public vote of confidence on May 15th, Hochevar had a 4.05 ERA in his remaining 10 appearances. I wouldn’t predict that he will have a season out of the Derek Lowe Collection, but if he maintains his confidence and his health this season, he certainly could.

I also wouldn’t predict Kyle Davies to take a step forward. Davies is sort of an older version of Hochevar, with less time left to fulfill his potential – another guy whose stuff grades out as above-average, but for whatever reason has never converted his stuff into results. Davies’ wife just had their first child, and maybe that will refocus his priorities for the better – it certainly worked out for a lot of Royals last year. Davies is 27 this year, in his final year before free agency – the same age and situation another underachiever named Gil Meche was in when he started to turn his career around in 2006. It would be foolish to predict such a thing, but sure, it’s possible that Davies could lop a run off his 5.49 ERA this season, and give the Royals 32 league-average starts.

I also wouldn’t expect Bruce Chen to repeat the kind of season he had in 2010. Chen had a 4.17 ERA last season, even though he had a higher walk rate and a lower strikeout rate than he did in 2009, when his ERA was 5.78. So sure, Chen was awfully lucky last year. I don’t expect that luck to hold. I mean sure, it could, or it’s possible that he could throw a few more strikes this year or find the smoke and mirrors that crafty lefties often do in their mid-30s. I’m certainly not counting on Chen to give the Royals a steady stream of 6-inning, 3-run outings all season and give them a chance to win every time out. It could happen, though.

I also would not expect Jeff Francis to stay healthy and prove his shoulder and stuff are back to 100%, but it could happen. In 2006 and 2007, before his arm started to bark, Francis averaged 207 innings with a 4.19 ERA – pitching in Coors Field. The odds are against him coming close to those totals this season, of course. But if he does, he’ll be a more than adequate starting pitcher.

Maybe Vinny Mazzaro will figure out how to make his sinker sink in the major leagues. It didn’t sink last year, but he was only 23 years old, and he managed a 4.27 ERA anyway. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it to happen, mind you, but pitching coach Bob McClure has worked his magic before; maybe he’ll do so again.

And maybe it won’t matter if one or two of the Royals’ starting pitchers blow up, if some of the most-advanced pitchers in The Greatest Farm System In The History Of Whatever are ready to step in by June or July. Sure, it’s unlikely that they’ll make an immediate impact, but Mike Montgomery is starting the year in Triple-A, and Danny Duffy might join him shortly. John Lamb and Chris Dwyer are both just a half-dozen good starts in Double-A away from joining them. It’s possible that one or two of them could step into the rotation sometime around Flag Day and find immediate success, making 20 starts with an above-average ERA.

Just to pick a few southpaws at random, Cole Hamels did it for the Phillies in 2006, and Barry Zito did the same thing for Oakland in 2000. Hell, Zack Duke came up for the freaking Pirates in 2005 and fashioned a 1.81 ERA in 14 starts. Pitching prospects sometimes dominate the league their first time through, before word gets around on how to hit this guy. The odds are slim to none that the Royals make a rotation makeover at mid-season and storm down the stretch with five above-average starters. But the potential is certainly there.

The bullpen, despite its inexperience – three of the seven relievers on the Opening Day roster are making their major-league debuts, and Jeremy Jeffress has thrown just 10 innings in the majors – could be one of the best bullpens in baseball. I mean, Jeffress throws in the upper 90s with a big-breaking curveball, and if he throws strikes, look out. Aaron Crow has the stuff of a first-round pick as a starter, and working in relief his stuff should be even better. Tim Collins is 5 feet 5 inches of pure awesomeness. All three of those guys could strike out better than a man an inning this season, and they’re just setting up Robinson Tejeda and Joakim Soria. Batters have hit just .194 against Tejeda since he joined the Royals. Soria is the second-best closer in baseball, and is in waiting to inherit the crown from Mariano Rivera.

Even the mop-up guys like Kanekoa Texeira and Nate Adcock have talent, and the Royals have a couple of lefties, guys like Blaine Hardy and Everett Teaford, who could bolster the bullpen by mid-season. Maybe Duffy or Dwyer gets brought up to pitch relief and air out their fastballs into the mid-to-upper 90s. It’s doubtful that everything would go right, naturally. But the talent is here for this to be the deepest Royals bullpen we’ve ever seen.

Mind you, even if the pitching staff doesn’t live up to these lofty dreams, it might not matter if the offense goes nuts. If it does, leading that charge will probably be Alex Gordon. Gordon probably won’t be an All-Star caliber hitter this year, but he has more of a chance than most guys who hit .215/.315/.355 last season. It’s not just that Gordon crushed the ball in spring training, although he did – .343/.459/.729 are pretty damn good numbers, thin air in Arizona or not. Hitting in Arizona is nothing new for Gordon; two years ago he hit .320/.400/.653 in spring training. The difference is that, after a winter of relentlessly working on his swing with Kevin Seitzer, Gordon has a new approach at the plate. Even casual fans have remarked that his swing looks different. The talent has always been there; you don’t win College Player of the Year and Minor League Player of the Year honors in back-to-back years without it. If his new swing unlocks that talent, look out. I’m not saying it will happen, naturally. But it wouldn’t be a shock to anyone if he hit .280/.370/.520 this season.

Gordon’s wingman in Omaha much of last season, Kila Ka’aihue, could also have a breakout season. No one really knows what to expect from Ka’aihue. Maybe the doubters are right; he did hit just .252/.392/.433 in Omaha in 2009, and after he was called up last season, he hit just .167/.239/.274 in August. But maybe they’re wrong, and maybe his bat speed really can go from “slider” to “fastball” with the flick of his wrists. He did hit .314/.456/.628 in 2008, after all, and .319/.463/.598 in Omaha last season, and in Kansas City in September, after the nerves had worn off, he hit .261/.367/.511. That last slash line seems like a reasonable approximation of what he could do. If he does – granted, it’s a long-shot – but if he does, he’d be the best DH the Royals have had since, I dunno, Chili Davis?

In reality, the DH role will probably fall more on Billy Butler, and if Butler builds upon what he has done the last two seasons, the Royals could have a truly formidable middle of the lineup. Granted, I don’t think Butler is going to double his home run total from last season – while I think he’s going to hit for more power over time, I think it’s going to be a gradual process as he learns to elevate the ball. But it’s possible that, after hitting 96 doubles over the last two seasons, some of those two-baggers start clearing the fence, and Butler hits 30 homers to go along with his .310 average. If Butler starts hitting more balls in the air, he would presumably also cut back on his double-play grounders, and his walk rate might climb as pitchers become even more reluctant to pitch to him.

Admittedly, it’s unlikely to happen. But would you really be that surprised if either Gordon, or Ka’aihue, or Butler hit 30 home runs? Or if any of them walked 90 times? Only once in Royals history (in 1985, ahem) have two different Royals hit 30 homers in a season, and no Royal has drawn 90 walks since 1989. The odds that either of those things happen this year is small; the odds that they both do are infinitesimal. But it could happen.

Speaking of “infinitesimal”, we shouldn’t completely discount the chance that Jeff Francoeur finds his swing this season. Yes, yes, I know, to even suggest that Francoeur won’t be one of the worst everyday players in baseball is grounds to be brought in front of the Sabermetric Tribunal for an inquisition. But bear with me here. Francoeur is, still, just 27 years old (one month older than Gordon, and two months older than Ka’aihue.) From 2005 to 2007, when Francoeur was 21-23 years old, he hit .280/.319/.463 in the major leagues. Is it that unlikely that, at the age of 27 – the most common peak year for hitters – he might simply replicate his performance from his early 20s? Seitzer has spent almost as much time with Francoeur’s swing as he has with Gordon’s. Certainly, it’s a shot in the dark to hope that Francoeur gives the Royals a .280/.320/.460 line along with durability and good defense in right field. But it’s not outside the realm of possibility.

Somewhat lost in the shuffle this spring training has been the Royals’ new shortstop, Alcides Escobar, even though Escobar hit .364/.400/.636 this spring and even popped five homers in 55 at-bats. Escobar was acquired for his defense, as everyone agrees that he’s a plus shortstop with borderline Gold Glove potential. But it’s premature to dismiss him as simply a glove-only shortstop. Escobar hit .328 in Double-A in 2008, .298 in Triple-A in 2009, and finished the 2009 season by hitting .304 in 38 games for the Brewers. He also stole 80 bases combined in those two seasons. Yes, he hit just .235 last year, with just four homers and 14 doubles, and only 36 walks. There’s a reason the Brewers were willing to part with him, after all. But he’s only 24 years old, and the offensive upside is still there. I wouldn’t bet on him hitting .290 for the Royals this season to go along with his speed and defense, but if he does, he’ll be one of the better shortstops in the league.

I wouldn’t bet on Chris Getz hitting much of anything this year, but I don’t have to, because if he’s not hitting by June, he’ll get run over by the Mike Moustakas steamroller. Now, it’s not reasonable to expect a rookie – even a top prospect like Moustakas – to be an impact hitter in the majors right from the get-go. But it could certainly happen. Moustakas hit .322/.369/.630 in the minors last year, with 36 homers and 41 doubles in just 118 games. After struggling in his first month in Triple-A, he crushed the ball in August and finished with a .293/.314/.564 line in Omaha. Another two months in the minors will only help him polish his plate discipline and his approach against lefties a little. Four years ago, another hard-hitting, free-swinging third base prospect named Ryan Braun started the year in Triple-A, and after 34 games (and a .701 slugging average) debuted for Milwaukee in late May. Braun crushed the ball so much – he actually led the NL in slugging as a rookie – that he won Rookie of the Year honors despite playing in just 113 games. I’m not saying that Mike Moustakas will have that kind of impact. But he could.

When Moustakas arrives, Mike Aviles can slide over to second base, where he played most of last season. Aviles has only had two healthy seasons in the major leagues, but he hit over .300 in each season, with a little pop in his bat as well. He’s already 30 and you can’t expect him to get better; on the other hand, he came back early from Tommy John surgery last year, and his arm only reached full strength in September, a month in which he hit six of his eight homers and slugged .568. It’s a stretch to think that he’ll hit that well again, or even that he can duplicate his rookie line of .325/.354/.480. But stranger things have happened.

In center field, the Royals are starting the year with Melky Cabrera, who led the Cactus League with a .468 batting average. Cabrera was awful for the Braves last year, but he did hit .274/.336/.416 with 13 homers as the starting centerfielder for the World Champion Yankees in 2009. If he doesn’t approach that line, Lorenzo Cain is just a phone call away. That leaves only catcher, where…well…maybe Brayan Pena will be allowed to bat 400 times, or maybe Jason Kendall slugs .330 with a healthy shoulder. I admit, this might be the biggest leap of faith of them all.

Look, I’m not saying that the Royals are going to win the AL Central, not when Baseball Prospectus puts their odds of making the playoffs at around 1 in 250. I mean, sure, VCU just made it to the Final Four, even though their odds of doing so before March Madness started were somewhere between 1 in 800 (according to Nate Silver) and 1 in 3000 (according to Ken Pomeroy). But it's still a remote possibility, the kind of possibility that you can only dream about on Opening Day.

I’m not saying that the Royals are going to shock the world this season. I’m just saying it could happen. And, you know, it wouldn’t suck if it did.