Why not leave him in?

If the Royals don't get their starting pitching figured out soon, this team is in big trouble. Gone are the days when we could hand the ball to Saberhagen, Cone or the Appier of old and expect a victory. We have several guys in our rotation that can look brilliant at times, but not on a consistent basis. I think Affeldt could be on the verge of a break out year, but his ERA is 4.94. Anderson's ERA is 6.44. Appier's is 13.50. May's is 7.32. Gobble is the only with a good ERA, coming in at 2.82. However, he didn't look all that great yesterday.

Reyes got the spot start today and he gave up five earned runs in just four innings. He doesn't appear to be the answer to an already battered and injured starting staff. Glass reiterated recently that we don't want to bring Greinke up yet and "do him more harm than good." Okay, good enough, but with Appier gone for the next month, and with May's injury status up in the air, what exactly are we going to do? Kris Wilson has strung together a few good starts in Omaha after getting off to a shaky start down there, so he may be an option to fill a spot for now.

Today's game was another tough one to watch. Two more errors by the Royals, another bad outing for a starting pitcher, missed opportunities to blow the game open with bases loaded in the third inning and then again in the sixth inning. And the list goes on and on. I'll get to the rest of the list in a minute. But there I was, sitting in the Royals press box (trying not to cheer—"No cheering in the press box" they tell me—I wasn't always obedient to the unwritten code by the way) hoping like crazy that we would pull this one out somehow.

Justin Huisman came in and pitched a 1-2-3 seventh inning and things were looking good. Then he repeated the task in the eighth. Then Pena brought in Leskanic for the ninth. I know it is not standard baseball practice anymore to leave in a guy like Huisman when he is pitching well because the closer is supposed to close, but I don't understand why Pena would not leave in a guy who just breezed through the last two innings without allowing a base runner. Of course, Michael Young goes deep and tied the game at 7-7. Oh they weren't through. Brad Fullmer then hit a two run shot and Pena still left Leskanic in. Why? I don't know. But Leskanic finally got through the inning and we were down 9-7. That's how it ended.