Royals host Blue Jays (series I)

It's been a busy week and I've fallen a bit behind on the blogging, so I want to apologize to my readers (all seven of you). Ok, now with that behind me, let's take a look at the Royals last home stand, more specifically the Blue Jays series.

The Royals returned home a week ago after completing a rough road trip in which the Royals went 2-5 and dropped out of first place. They first faced Cleveland, who promptly handled the Royals in three straight games, and extended the Royals loosing streak to 7 games. It was a bad week, no doubt about it, we all saw the Royals go from first to worst, but could the rebound against the Jays?

Game 1: Zack Greinke continued his strong start to the season by throwing 7 innings and allowing 1 run. Nunez pitched the eighth and allowed three runs, his first of the year in blowing the save. Down 4-2 the offense finally got to work scoring an amazing six runs in route to an 8-4 win.

Player of the game: David DeJesus was 2-4 with a walk and 3 RBI

Game 2: Luke Hochevar got the first win of his career by pitching 6 strong innings and allowing only 1 run. Hochevar was pitching with runners on all game but he got outs when it counted. Mahey, Nunez, Ramirez pitched the 7th and 8th and Soria notched his 6th save in 6 chances. The offense did just enough and Guillen hit his 2nd home run of the season, and the Royals won 2-1.

Player of the game: Luke Hochevar went 6 innings allowing 6 hits and 1 run and scored his first win.

Game 3: Going for the sweep the Royals sent struggling ace, Gil Meche to the mound. Meche pitched well, allowing 3 runs in 6.2 innings. The offense again let the team down scoring only 2 runs, both on an RBI single by David DeJesus. The Royals dropped the finale 5-2.

Player of the game: David DeJesus, he didn't do much but he did have both RBI in going 1-4 on the day.

Look at the numbers:

1. $11 million dollar man Gil Meche continues to struggle and is sporting an ugly 7.22 ERA.
2. DeJesus had 5 RBI in the series, 41% of the runs scored.
3. The Royals are now have 1 sweep in 5 chances.
4. The Royals offense now ranks last in runs scored at 82, the MLB average is 117 runs.
5. Speaking of lousy offense, how about 3.28 runs per game so far for the Royals.
6. Royals are 19th in baseball in average (.253), 26th in OBP (.305), and 28th in SLG (.346)
7. The Royals pitching fell from 14th to 20th in the league with a 4.42 ERA