Saturday Night Thoughts

-- The Royals are 3-9 now. So I guess that "quick start" they were hoping for is pretty much out of the question now, isn't it? How many games would you say make up an official "start?" I'd say 12 games is enough -- in which case, this is tied for the third worst start in team history.

Kansas City's worst starts
1992: 1-11
2006: 2-10
2007: 3-9
2001: 3-9
1993: 3-9
1981: 3-9

Since 1990, the Royals have been .500 or worse after 12 games every year but two -- 2000 (when they had the great offense and a historically bad bullpen) and 2003 (the miracle start, they were 11-1 after 12 games). That's one thing you have to admire about the Royals in recent years. They crush hopes early.

-- It needs to be said: Mike Sweeney looks absolutely awful. It is true that Mike generally heats up a bit later in the year -- his .278 career average in April is his lowest for any month -- but I've never seen him look this sluggish before. It isn't just that he has 5 hits in 28 at-bats. It isn't even that he has zero extra base hits (or, if you prefer, "four fewer extra base hits than Tony Pena Jr."). No, it's more that he looks like he's swinging his bat underwater. Scouts told me all spring that Sweeney's bat has really slowed, but I didn't see it so much then. I'm seeing it now.

-- I have started a deal with Royals radio broadcaster Ryan Lefebvre: I give him a word he has to use on the broadcast, and then he gives me a word I have to get into the column. I think it should be a three-for-one because Ryan gets to use a lot more words, but we can still work out the logistics. In any case, his word for tonight was "sparkly." I listened to most of the broadcast, though, and didn't hear him say it. Did you?

-- I guess Curt Schilling seems to be fine -- except when he's facing that vaunted Royals lineup. He threw eight shutout innings tonight against the Los Angeles Mighty Ducks, which leads us to a couple of fascinating (and utterly meaningless) statistical observations.

First, there's a Curt Schilling breakdown:

Schilling vs. the Royals: 0-1, 11.25 ERA, 8 hits, 5 K, 2 walks.
Schilling vs. other guys: 2-0, 0.60 ERA, 8 hits, 10 K, 2 walks.

More importantly, here is the Royals lineup against starting pitchers:

Curt Schilling: 4 innings, 5 earned runs.
Josh Beckett: 5 IP, 1 ER.
Dice K: 7 IP, 1 ER.
Justin Verlander: 6 IP, 0 ER.
Mike Maroth: 5 IP , 4 ER
Jeremy Bonderman: 6 IP, 2 ER
A.J. Burnett: 6 2/3 IP, 1 ER
Josh Towers: 5 2/3 IP, 3 ER
Gustavo Chacin: 5 IP, 3 ER
Steve Trachsel: 7 IP, 1 ER
Erik Bedard: 6 IP, 1 ER
Daniel Cabrera: 5 IP, 3 ER

This means that other than Schilling, starters have posted a lovely 2.75 ERA against the Royals. The Royals need more Schilling. I hope Curt puts something about that in his blog.

-- Jimmy Rollins has six home runs in 11 games. If he keeps hitting homers at that pace he will ... OK, never mind. But I've always loved small sample statistics like this because when I was a kid we used to play this poor man's Strat-o-Matic game called "Statis Pro" -- do they still have that game? And in that game, they didn't care how few at-bats the player got -- they would get a card that would reflect his stats.

The first year we played it was 1979, so the best player by FAR was Pittsburgh's Matt Alexander, who had hit .538 in 44 at-bats and stole 13 bases. Matty was like Ty Cobb on greenies. I seem to recall that a couple of years later, the big star was Mickey Klutts (yep, in 1981, he hit .370 with 5 homers in 46 at-bats).

If Jimmy Rollins quit tomorrow, he'd have one of the great Statis Pro cards in baseball history.

-- So you were wondering: "Hey, who is the single-season home run record holder among players born in the state of Nevada?"

Glad you asked: It's Marty Cordova with 24 in a season. Second is Marty Cordova with 20. Third is Marty Cordova and fourth is Marty Cordova, but fifth is, well, yeah, Marty Cordova. Yes, sixth is Marty Cordova, but seventh is, all right, fine, that's Marty Cordova too.

Eighth is Justin Leone. He was born in Las Vegas and hit six in 2004. Ninth, naturally, is Marty Cordova. I was expecting to see Greg Maddux on the list, but apparently he moved to Las Vegas later in life -- he was born in San Angelo, TX.

-- Take away the Royals, and every single team in the American League is within three games of .500 on the plus or minus side. I suspect this doesn't mean anything at all, but it just seems like nobody in the league has established anything yet. Except the Royals.

-- One final thought: I was doing some newspaper research on Willard Brown for my book and also for my Sunday column and I came across a fascinating story that I knew nothing about ... apparently there was actually some consideration to move the St. Louis Cardinals to CHICAGO in 1947. The one story I saw was kind of convoluted so I couldn't tell exactly what the point of the move was (like, were they really going to have three teams in Chicago?). But apparently it was a very real thought, even if only for a moment. See, that would have made the Cubs-Cardinals rivalry that much more exciting, no?