Okay, I knew they weren't going to be good, but...

At this early point in the season, the ineffectiveness of the Royals' starters is going to cost them games not only via the poor performances themselves, but via the soon-to-be tired bullpen behind them being too taxed to stop the bleeding.

The maneuvers they can pull off are extremely limited at this point (hence moves like signing Jeff Suppan) -- my hope was that the current rotation could hang on just long enough so that prospect call-ups in June could infuse some competency, but Kyle Davies's first two starts have been so horrible as to force me to think panicky.

...not that it takes much, mind you. Sometimes I practice panicking just to make sure I remember how to do it properly. Observe...

Aaaaaaah! OMG, what are the Royals going to DO about their starters!?!?

Alright, that was soul-cleansing.

Besides the immediate thought of bringing up Suppan if he proves he can still pitch (he was with the Giants in Spring Training but didn't do very well in two starts...he likely wouldn't be any better than Davies, but at least he probably wouldn't be issuing walks left and right), another possible move is simply replacing Davis with Aaron Crow -- but by previous chatter, this wouldn't be something the Royals would want to do right now.

Then there's Sean O'Sullivan...he's young, so there is that, but there really hasn't been anything he's shown to this point to suggest he'd be any better than Davies, either.

From there it comes to the minors -- I wouldn't suggest bringing up any of the kids yet (Lamb, Montgomery, Duffy), so really the main name that comes to mind is Vin Mazzaro. Being honest, it's the continuation of the theme we're establishing -- Mazzaro hasn't shown anything that should lead us to believe he'd be any better than Davies, either.

So what to do? To be fair, I shouldn't heap everything on Davies -- for one, any pitcher can have a bad couple of starts in a row, right? Of course. But the other reason I shouldn't pile onto Davies is that I could almost as easily be talking about Luke Hochevar or Bruce Chen in place of Davies. It seems much too likely that one or even all three of them will force Dayton Moore's hand to do something just by being too horrible to allow to continue to start.