That worked out well

I'm no where close to calling the Royals a good team. Not even within shouting distance. I am prepared to go out on the most slender of limbs to say they're definitely not horrible, however.

Yes, you heard it here first (or 27th). The Kansas City Royals are not horrible. What can I say? Fortune favors the bold, and I'm just a guy calling it like I see it...while also not wanting to overstate things and look stupid two weeks from now.

I figured, like probably we all did, that the 6-game losing streak was a deathknell. Basement-dwelling couldn't be too far behind, right? Then I paid attention to the schedule and realized...okay, there were some winnable games coming up. The Minnesota Twins were hurting -- any team playing them right now should feel confident, and sure enough, the Royals beat up on them for a three-game sweep.

The Baltimore Orioles are a little different animal. No, they're not good, either. But when you look at their wins & losses, you realize the losses are concentrated against three teams: the New York Yankees, the Texas Rangers, and the Cleveland Indians...or, the 3 teams with the best records in the AL. The Royals also had trouble with the Rangers and Indians, although they have yet to play the Yankees.

Another similarity -- the Orioles started hot (6-1), hit a rough patch (lost 11 of 13, only beating the Twins during that stretch), and then managed a sweep of a struggling team: the Chicago White Sox. The Royals also started hot (12-7), hit a rough patch (lost 6 in a row), then managed a sweep of a struggling team in the Twins.

So what does all that mean? Absolutely nothing. Aren't you glad you read all that?

But from a fluff standpoint, it means they're both teams wondering about themselves a bit -- yes, so far they've beat either bad teams or teams playing badly at the time, but have struggled against good teams or...whatever the Indians are (although it's hard to think they're a fluke...they're not exactly winning a bunch of 1-run games, here).

In essence, no, this isn't an "important" series -- at least, not any more important than any of the others ones to this point -- but it is an interesting series between two teams that are trying to prove to themselves and their fans that they're something more than "not horrible".

The standings were weird to look at after the game, by the way:

It isn't about the standings of the teams, per se -- sure, it's almost the opposite of what the vast majority were predicting for this division, but I'm talking more about the losing streaks of the bottom three teams: 6 in a row for the Twins and Detroit Tigers, 5 in a row for the White Sox. And remember, the Royals just came out of a 6-game losing streak. At this juncture, the Indians longest losing streak is 3 games.