The Kansas City Royals are a week into their 2012 campaign. Seven games is not a large sample size. However, there are some things you can infer from the Royals past behavior during previous seasons under the current administration. I’m going to make an attempt at discerning what we know about the Royals already, and what I’m not sure about.

Since Luke Hochevar got the start yesterday afternoon for the Royals home opener I’m going to use his favorite phrase; “ummm..You know?” to help facilitate this process. In honor of Luke Hochevar I’m going to list things I know about the Royals under the heading “You know”, and things I’m not sure about under the heading “Ummm”.

Ummm

Before yesterday the Royals’ starting pitching has an ERA of 1.85. When your sample size is six games there are a lot of “yeah, buts”. You could say that the low ERA has more to do with Royals opponents than their pitchers. That holds up with the Athletics who might score the fewest runs in the AL this season. It doesn’t hold up with the Angels who are projected to score a lot of runs.

I don’t think the starting pitching is as bad as Hochevar’s Mazzaroesque 1st inning yesterday. Of course, the real answer is always somewhere in between. I think the starting staff will be better than we expected, but not as good as they’ve been outside of this guy….

You Know

I almost went off on this tangent last season. If you read between the lines of anything I wrote last season you might have picked up on it. Luke Hochevar is my least favorite Royal. There, I got that out there. I think it started with his holdout coming out of the amateur draft. It wasn’t the holdout specifically; lots of players do what Hochevar did, including teammate Aaron Crow. However, maybe it was the holdout and then his accompanying suckage at the Major League level. I’ve been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for Hochaver to turn a corner. Even though Dayton Moore’s people didn’t draft him, he continues to be treated like he was. I don’t know what it is.

Hochevar was starting to grow on me during the latter part of last season. He was finally becoming the ace pitcher that he was supposed to be, and the ace pitcher the Royals need him to be. Then yesterday’s bottom of the 1st happened re-enforcing my belief that Hochevar is a 1st round draft pick bust. Maybe I’m still mad about one bad inning in April, but Hochaver’s body of work doesn’t contain much for me to change my mind. I know the trade mark Luke Hochevar Inning will be something Royals fans will have to deal with as long as Hochaver is on the team.

Ummm

Coming into the season we thought the Royals offense would be potent. However, that has not transpired. The Royals have been shut-out twice in seven games. For comparison, last year the Royals were not shut-out until May 14th, and did not get shutout again until May 21st. The players we thought would be producers have gotten off to slow starts. Two of those players, Lorenzo Cain and Salvador Perez are on the disabled list. I’m confident these slumps will not continue. Just like I expect the starting pitching to come back to earth, I expect the offense to get going.

You Know

I hate starting out on this tangent but this team’s base running is bothering more than anything. Ned Yost claims they’re just being “aggressive”. I think Ned’s reaction is just a front for the media. Getting picked-off is not aggressive, not watching the runner in front of you is not aggressive, it’s not paying attention. Even if the Royals running out of innings is a product of being aggressive, it’s troublesome that this organization believes that aggressive base running is a proper strategy.

I’m far from a Sabrematrician, in fact I’ll argue with some of their major tenants. However, one aspect I believe from their research is that stealing bases is the most over-rated offensive statistic in baseball. Stealing bases doesn’t lead to more wins, it doesn’t even lead to more runs. In fact, I’m sure stealing bases prevents your team from scoring runs. I wrote about this last season when I got tired of the Royals tooting their horn about leading the league in stolen bases. The Royals need to stop falling asleep on the base paths. They need to stop running themselves out of innings, and they need to stop being aggressive. But one thing I know is that the Royals base running continues to be terrible.

What do we know about the Royals? Aside from what I’ve discussed, not much. After the Angels series I was confident that this year was going to live up to expectations and we were going to enjoy it. Right now I feel like the Royals are going down the path of the 106 loss 2005 team filled with moments of historical suckage and comedy. I’m probably right on both accounts. Most experts expected the Royals to hang around .500. Right now they’re one game below .500. If this were a football season the Royals would have just finished the 3rd quarter during Week 1 and they’re down by a field goal. As fans that’s something we need to remember.

For the first time since the incredible evening of September 28th, 2011 the Kansas City Royals finally took the field for a game that counted. How much should I emphasize finally? Our roommates here at I70 Baseball, the St Louis Cardinals, had completed two games in two different cities before Alex Gordon dug in against Jered Weaver Friday evening. Finally we can quit speculating about what might happen. Finally we have real games to watch and react. Finally baseball can show us why we why love it so much. Baseball shows us that when we think we know stuff about baseball, we really don’t know anything about baseball.

Coming into the season we had this team figured out. The Kansas City Royals were going to hit. The Royals were going to be good defensively. The bullpen was going to be strong, and the starting rotation was going to be suspect. Then the first game of the 2012 season starts and the game unfolded like none of us thought it would.

Alex Gordon digs in and promptly flies out to center and begins a long evening for the Royals at the plate. Jered Weaver hamstrung the Royals for 8 innings, striking out 10, and never allowed a runner to reach third base. Granted Weaver is an ace pitcher and a lot of the Royals futility can be attributed to him. However, the top of the Royals line-up looked lost at the plate. Especially on Alex Gordon’s second at bat where he struck out with three check swings. The closest the Royals came to scoring was in the 7th when Jeff Francoeur doubled with one out…and promptly got picked off. There are some trends that seem to carry over from year to year. Horrendous base running appears to have not changed in the Royals organization. It was a disappointing offensive to performance. Oh well, we waited this long for the Royals to play a game. I guess we’ll wait a few more hours for the Royals to score a run.

Fortunately, there was a bright spot for the Royals. It was starting pitcher Bruce Chen, who threw six innings of shutout ball, striking out 4, and not walking anyone. A good performance from this starting staff is important. Since the Royals bullpen is supposed to the strength of the pitching staff I thought it was a good idea to not let a tired Chen face the heart of the Angels line-up. Chen was lifted, and Aaron Crow was sent out to pitch the 7th. To this point in the game there had not been a lot to cheer about. But then the fist pumping began. Aaron Crow struck out the side in dominating fashion. This performance was highlighted by a three pitch strike out that made the greatest active hitter in baseball; Albert Pujols, look flat out silly. I’ll take another inning of that please. Unfortunately, that was the high water mark for the Royals in this game.

Crow came back out to pitch the 8th. After retiring Kendrys Morales on a fly ball to left, Crow gave up three consecutive singles before being lifted for Greg Holland. OK, Holland is viewed by many fans to be the best arm in the bullpen. If anyone is going to put this fire out it’s Greg Holland. Instead, Alcides Escobar mishandled a weak grounder from Peter Bourjos allowing a run to score and keeping the bases loaded. Erick Aybar was the next hitter who uncorked a triple down the right field line and that was your ball game. The Angels beat the Royals on Opening Day 5-0.

This game just goes to show that in baseball anything can happen. That’s part of the sport’s mystery. This was a game of opposites for the Royals. The parts of the team we thought would be strengths; bullpen, offense, and defense let us down. The part we thought was suspect, the starting pitching, gave us something to cheer about. It’s too early to tell if this is a trend to buck the prevalent thinking, or it’s a one game, or even an entire series anomaly.

This was just one game of 162. It has been said that during a baseball season a team will win 50 games, lose 50 games, and their season will be decided with the middle 62 games. While I’m still irritated that Aaron Crow and Greg Holland didn’t hold down their end of the bargain. You have to remember the Royals did not score any runs for their pitchers. Because the Royals got shutout I have to put this game in the 50 they were going to lose anyway. Not every pitcher will be tough as Jered Weaver. It’s just tough when it’s the first game in six months. The good news is, the Royals get another crack at winning in less than 24 hours. This next is likely one of the coveted 62.