The Arizona Series

I had a crazy weekend. My laptop crashed and since it's my primary computer, and I had a writing project due early this morning, those two things consumed my entire weekend. I finished my writing assignment on a seven year-old desktop that has 256K of RAM and a Pentium IV chip. Can you say slower than molasses in the middle if January? But enough about me.

How about them Royals? They ended up taking the series in Arizona, thanks largely to a suddenly resurgent offense. Jose Guillen continues to hit and last I looked, he was third in the AL in RBI. And what in the world has gotten into David DeJesus? The guy is on fire. I remember all they hype the surrounded him when it became clear that the Royals were going to have to trade Carlos Beltran. DeJesus was thought to be a type of Beltran. That never really panned out, and it was probably an unfair label to hang on him, but he sure is fun to watch right now. He's working counts (finally) and when he gets a pitch to hit, he hits it hard. Yesterday he even knocked his first grand slam of his career to give the Royals a 6-0 lead in the fourth inning.

That was all Gil Meche needed. He was tough on the D-backs. I don't remember seeing him throw so many fastballs in a game before but that's probably just the element of surprise at work since he normally throws so many curves.

Mike Aviles has certainly made the best out his opportunity to play shortstop. He's hitting .341 right now and is showing extra base power that we haven't had at that position in a long time--maybe ever, although Jay Bell had a great season in 1997 (21 HR, 92 RBI).

The Royals move on to St. Louis where they'll begin a new series tomorrow night. Kyle Davies (2-0, 1.53) is scheduled to go up against Braden Looper (8-5, 4.34)--at least that is what the Royals website says. A couple of other websites say that Joel Pineiro will start for the Cardinals.