Musings from Roy F. Almania: Back in the Basement

Last summer, we, on occasion, recruited my cousin Roy from Joplin, Missouri to contribute writings to this site from time to time. He's a lifelong Kansas City Royals fan, and he, for lack of better terminology, has a special way with words. The idea was to offer a fresh perspective on one of baseball's longest suffering franchises, and, for the most part, he did a decent job. In the off-season, he, somewhat reluctantly, agreed to make occasional guest appearances here on the House of Georges. This post is his first of the actual 2008 campaign, and hopefully not his last. Like any guest column, we edit the writing for grammar, mechanics, and spelling to a degree, but leave the bulk of the work in its original form for the sake of genuinity. His take on the first month of Royals baseball, just after the jump.

I've not been lookin' forward to this day for some time. I knew it'd come; I only hoped it wouldn't be in April, for Pete's sake. The Royals, after an impressive first couple weeks of baseball, have slid their way back into last in the American League Central. I'm rightful mad about the whole thing, 'specially after a miserable trip to the west coast, and a homestand against The Tribe. So I won't have much to say about it today. Maybe I can offer something better in May. But I gotta five-piece bit to analyze the season thus far. It goes like this:

1) I think it was that St. Louis ass clown T.S. Eliot that said "April is the cruelest month" in one of his most famous poem thingys. And he must've been thinking Kansas City baseball when he wrote it. The first month of the season, 2003 excepting, has been downright miserable for the Royals for over 10 years now. And I know them season ticket holders've got to be fed up by it all. Course I hold the boys in blue responsible, but the almight duo of Dayton Moore and Trey Hillman have got to find a way to enter May in a more competitive state. Period.

2) Gil Meche has got to figure out a way to deal with his frustrations, and poor team outings when he's on the hill. It's obvious to even a sow-slopper like myself that he gets down on himself all too often. And that does no one no good.

3) Like a cave in Branson, the bats've got to be there. And they ain't. I don't reckon the boys'll ever top six runs in a game if they can't swing the sticks. Hillman can be as aggressive as he wants on the basepath, but if the fellas don't make contact, it won't matter. If Grudz an' DeJesus could stay healthy, and then maybe Moustakas could get ready, we might show some improvement, but counting on Gathright and Tony, Jr. to bunt three out of every four times won't cut even the freshest of homemade mustards. And Jose Guillen? Well, his bat comes alive at the most inopportune of times. I was excited about that signing at first, but I'm durn near kickin' myself for buyin' any of that hype.

4) If I had me an extra spare change jar, I'd buy me the rights to one of them Web sites, and I'd name it "dubya dubya dubya dot where's Luke Hudson dot com." We need that boy healthy, and yesterday. Banny and Greinke've been brilliant, but we can't count on Tomko and Hochevar to bring the bottom of the rotation successfully back to our aces, especially when our ace is fillin' the three-spot. Tomko's done fair, but he gets the Meche luck of the draw: no sticks on good outings, and hot sticks from the opponents when our sticks is decent.

5) What have y'all done to my Mark Teahen? He used to tinker with .300 fairly regular. Somebody done changed somethin' about his stance or his swing, and he's not puttin' the ball in play like we know he's capable of doin'. Same goes with Johnny B. He's barely hittin' over .200 right now, and dadgum it, it ain't right. There's a stink in that stable, and I demand an answer from Mike Barnett.

And that's about how I see things. If we can get decent outings more consistently from the starters, and get those bats that's supposed to be makin' contact to do so, we'd be somewheres in the middle, and not down in the cellar, a place that the Royals know all to well in April. I thought the motto this year was supposed to be "New. Blue. Tradition." Way I see it, we got new faces, we got them powder blue shirts, and we got tradition. I'd hoped maybe we'd squeeze out the "blue" and build some new tradition, one that didn't yield the Royals' rightful place in last.