Royals Salvage Final Game

After the Royals lost 5-3 yesterday to the Rangers, a four game sweep by the Rangers looked inevitable. Then, just to show you how crazy this game can be sometimes, the punchless Royals offense scored 17 runs in a 17-8 route this afternoon.

Aaron Guiel had a big day at the top of the line up, going 3-for-6 with a home run. Denny Hocking had two more hits to raise his average to .280. Angel Berroa had a big game, going 2-for-5 with a home run and 5 RBI. And the rest of these guys had two hits: Long, Stairs, Diaz, Brown, and Buck.

Jimmy Gobble was on track for the win, but he hit his pitch limit in the fifth inning and Bell removed him from the game after Gobble threw his 61st pitch. Talk about babying a guy. Sixty one pitches? What exactly are we saving him for? The end of the season is upon us.

Speaking about starting pitchers, David Glass made a few comments that appeared in the KC Star this morning about our staff and the potential to improve it during the off season.  

"We're not going to compromise our position, we're not going to settle for anything less than you can win the division with, and then we'll get out into the free agent market or in the opportunities we have for trades, and fill the holes that we can't fill internally within our own system," Glass said.

I'm not sure that I really follow Glass. If we aren't willing to settle for anything less than a staff that will win the division, how does he explain this season? We don't have a legitimate number one guy. We don't have a legitimate number two guy. And we don't even have a legitimate number three guy. Runelvys Hernandez is probably a number four guy. I'm not all that sure we have a number five guy though.

All in all, that is a lot of holes to fill if we are serious about making a run at the division. And can you imagine what it would cost to bring in four veteran starting pitchers—one of which would need to fill the shoes of an ace? Doesn't seem all that realistic to me. But I guess we'll see how serious Glass is during the off season.