Hump Day Blues

-- Zack Greinke was considerably better last night than he has been in at least a month, though it still seems to me that he's searching for some balance in his approach on the mound. I think he demonstrated that he has the ability to get his velocity up to 93-94 consistently and strikeout batters (8 in 5 innings), but that came at a cost: he was up to 94 pitches with 1 out in the 6th and he clearly tired. That suggests to me that Greinke needs to work on his conditioning if he wants to develop the kind of stamina he's going to need to throw hard for 7+ innings.

-- I was disappointed that the Royals were shut down by Jon Garland last night. Garland was great in April, but he's been in decline ever since and has been a mediocre pitcher for past 6 weeks. He been racking up the wins primarily because of great run support, but that wasn't the case last night.

I think Garland's success has been a microcosm of the entire White Sox season. It doesn't look like they should be winning that much(the White Sox' 3rd order expected record, adjusting for park factors, is 39-31) but they somehow are. There are still 95+ games left in the season, of course, so there's plenty of time for regression to the mean. But let's give them their due: they play like professionals, they don't beat themselves and they have a nasty back end of the bullpen that locks down victories.

With a solid left-hander on the mound today in Buerhle, I think the Royals are headed for the wrong kind of sweep.

-- I always used to enjoy Rob Neyer's posts on the Royals for his relentless pursuit of objectivity, but I don't think he's all that objective anymore. On the contrary, his opinions on the state of the Royals is driven by his incessant pessimism, and while I tend to share that pessimism, its starting to wear on me.

Not only is the glass half-empty for Rob, it has jagged edges and is filled with spoiled milk. Just not a very fun read these days.

-- The Tuesday disabled list trifecta included the surprising promotion of Johan Bayliss to the big club. He's always been a high strikeout pitcher with questionable control and has been in AA for all of 2 months (a Royal staple). The Royals' justification for his promotion is that his control has improved since being converted into a reliever (another Royal staple), but IT JUST AIN'T TRUE:

BB/9 as a starter (2002 - 2004): 4.0
BB/9 as a reliever (2005): 4.2

Do they not think we can look this stuff up?

Anyway, Johan's promotion from AA to the big club proves once again that every player at AAA Omaha is just a dead man walking. Speaking of which, Ken Harvey has been transferred to the 60-day DL.