One of the trendy picks this season has been the Kansas City Royals. It seems that for the last few years there have been people who were saying that the Royals were finally ready for primetime, but then inevitably June would come around and it was pretty obvious that Kansas City was going to have to wait another year. The reason for this has been that while the Royals have developed some nice young talent in their organization they've never had the pitching that's needed to be competitive for an entire season.It looks like that may have changed in 2009. Anybody who watched the Royals take two out of three against the White Sox this week saw why people think this year's squad has a legitimate shot at winning a wide open AL Central division. Through three games Royals pitching made a White Sox offense that's always near the top of the AL in offense look foolish, and there's no reason to think it won't continue.
After three games the Royals lead the majors with a 1.73 ERA as they allowed only five runs in 26 innings and combined for a WHIP of 0.96. The top three starters in Kansas City's rotation -- Gil Meche, Zack Greinke, and Kyle Davies -- allowed only one run in 20 innings of work, with that run coming off of Gil Meche who completely shut the door on the White Sox offense afterward.
Their bullpen has pitched just as well. In fact, if you remove Kyle Farnsworth and the three-run homer he gave up to Jim Thome in the opener from the equation, the Royals pitching staff has only allowed two runs in 25 innings. That's an ERA of 0.72, which is liable to win a game or two for you.
Now there are questions about the Royals fourth and fifth starters Sidney Ponson and Horacio Ramirez, and rightfully so, but looking around the AL Central there aren't any teams who don't have questionable starters at the back-end of their rotation. If you're the Indians you have questions everywhere in your rotation right now.
Really the only problem the Royals have had so far this season is scoring runs themselves. Yes, their pitching staff has the best ERA in baseball right now, but you know who is in second place?
The White Sox with a 2.00 ERA after allowing six runs through the first three games. Still, when you consider the talent Kansas City has in its lineup, they're going to start scoring runs at some point, and if their top three horses can keep shutting down offenses like they did the White Sox, this team could easily end up surprising everybody and play well into October for the first time since 1985.
