2009 Royals at the half way point

Exactly at mid-season after 81 games our Royals stand a disappointing 35-46. This could possibly be a 100 loss season as our boys in blue have enjoyed a distinct home advantage in the first half of the schedule 46-35. That of course will be just 35 home games and 46 on the road for the second half.

I will try and address the very few positives initially. Zack Greinke has had a wonderful first half. 10-4 2.00 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 120 SO in 121 1/3 IP, 14 quality starts out of 17 games started are 2009 Cy Young award worthy numbers. Pitching has been pretty good for the most part. The team ERA of 4.26 is better then AL and MLB league average. Gil Meche has been the usual workhorse he has been since he came here. He gets little offensive support just as in the past but he has an ERA of 4.20 with over half of his 17 starts being quality starts. Brian Bannister has been a pleasant surprise after struggling last year. He stands 6-6 with an ERA of 3.87 8 of his 15 games started are quality starts and a WHIP of 1.29. Joakim Soria looks like he may have his injury concerns put behind him. He has looked like himself again of late. He has 12 saves an ERA of 1.74 to go with 27 SO in 20 2/3 IP along with a 1.02 WHIP. Alberto Callaspo has lead the team regulars most of the year with 304/355/457 numbers at the half way point.

Briefly I will touch on what is really really bad. To win games you have to score runs. If you don't score runs you have a record of 35-46 at the half way point. The Royals have scored an abysmal 319 runs in 81 games. San Diego is the only team worse at this point with 310 runs. That's less then 4 runs a game on average. To score runs you have to first get someone on base. This is where the Royals are worse than any team in MLB with .312 being the team OBP. The Yankees, Red Sox and Tampa have team OBP's over .350. Alberto Callaspo leads the Royals regulars with an OBP of .355 while the Yankees have a team OBP of .356!!!

Only 3 teams have committed more errors in the field than the Royals so far but I have difficulty believing any team is more incompetent in the field than the Royals are. Take a real hard look at every single position on this club and try and come up with one player who is above average in the field. Zack Greinke is a very good fielder but he plays the least important fielding position. I can't come up with one. It has gotten so bad and our expectations are so low that I hear statements such as Tony Pena Jr. is a defensive specialist and Billy Butler is doing well at first base this year. Pena Jr. is at best average in the field and his bat is beyond description it is so pathetic. How many times a week do you see Billy Butler make really bad decisions? He has not been charged with a great number of errors to this point although he has been given many gifts and passes in this regard by our official scorer at home.