Affeldt Shuts Down the M's.

Jeremy Affeldt made a strong case yesterday for a spot in the rotation. He one-hit the Mariners for six innings, giving up one run, and walking one. All of a sudden, he's 2-1 with a 3.93 ERA. With Mike Wood still pitching extremely well, the battle for the last remaining spot appears to be between Affeldt and Bautista. Bautista goes against the Padres this afternoon and obviously, this is a huge outing for him.

With the 4-1 victory over Seattle yesterday, the Royals are 11-7 in Cactus League play—just a 1.5 games out from the first place Angels. I used to get pretty excited about good spring training win-loss records, but not so much any more. Yeah, the last time the Royals won the Cactus League Championship was 2003 and we all remember what happened that year. But with so many question marks in our rotation, I'm not all that sure that we are as good as our record indicates. I think we owe our spring success to guys who are putting up incredible offensive numbers:

• Joe McEwing is hitting .500 (16-for-32).
• Doug Mientkiewicz is hitting .457 (16-for-35) with 13 RBI.
• Paul Phillips is hitting .423 (11-for-26).
• Alex Gordon is hitting .407 (11-for-27).
• Angel Berroa is hitting .400 (12-for-30), with zero BB.
• Reggie Sanders is hitting .385 (10-for-26).
• Most of our other starters are at or over .300.