Saturday, April 23, 2011

Offensive holes becoming apparent?

Despite a very shaky beginning to the season by Kyle Davies, a few mini-meltdowns by Luke Hochevar, one really bad outing by Jeff Francis, and a few bullpen implosions (a couple of which were probably pretty predictable), I think an objective look at the Royals' pitching so far this season would produce this sentiment:

They've pitched about as well as anyone could expect up to this point.

I think the same can be said of the Royals' offense in general, except that there are ways for it to get better. While it still could be that Alex Gordon won't run a .900+ OPS all season or that expecting Wilson Betemit to match his 2010 production could be a shaky proposition (although I think he'll be close), after 21 games I think the only Royal in over his head offensively is Jeff Francoeur.

However, a lot of Royals hitters are performing worse than their career numbers would suggest they're capable of, such as: Alcides Escobar, Matt Treanor, Brayan Pena, Kila Ka'aihue, and Mike Aviles are all players the Royals should expect to provide more offense than they have to this point.

The Royals haven't hit many home runs -- the team has hit the 4th least in the AL, which isn't good, but they've made up for a lot of that by leading the AL in doubles and steals. I don't think there's much case that can be made that the Royals should be hitting more home runs, so while it hurts to see the Texas Rangers up close and see them poking balls out of the park left and right, the reality is that the Royals just aren't that kind of team, and will score in a different way most of the time.

It's difficult to think the Royals can sustain being one of the best offenses in the league given that they were one of the worst offenses in the league just last season, but I don't think it's out of the question that the Royals can more-or-less maintain scoring at a fairly high clip.

They'll need to, too, if they want to remain competitive -- the Royals certainly can't do it on the strength of their starting pitching.

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