Walk (off) like an Egyptian...

Another day, another walk-off win. Ho-hum.

This one came equipped with Interesting Things, though. Things such as:

• Luke Hochevar being dominant. I'm a huge pessimist, but let me tell you this much...despite his penchant for giving up solo home runs (11 of the 13 total HRs Hoch has given up this year have been solo shots), he had the Texas Rangers hitters looking like they didn't have much chance -- it'd be different if he was pitching against, say, the Minnesota Twins. It's really starting to be that Hoch's only issue this season is the longball -- other than that, he's pitched pretty well.

Also, I'm going to laugh for a second at the similarity between the lines of Hochevar and Madison Bumgarner, who both started for my respective favorite teams last night and are both sinkerballers:

8.2 IP, 6H, 1R, 1ER, 2BB, 4K for Hoch

8.2 IP, 6H, 1R, 1ER, 2BB, 3K for MadBum

• Yesterday's lineup is what I consider the best the Royals can put out on a daily basis, and with the exception of essentially flipping Wilson Betemit and Melky Cabrera in the order, should be pretty close to an optimal setup. Despite only scoring 2 runs, that lineup cranked out 14 hits and drew 2 walks, which will score more than 2 runs the vast majority of the time. Part of the reason they only scored 2 was...
• Overaggressiveness on the basepaths, which cost them in game #1 vs. the Rangers, and could have cost them game #2. Getting caught stealing happens, but Melky's caught stealing was really just him getting picked off, and picked off in an 0-2 count at that. Jeff Francoeur's reckless attempts to stretch singles into doubles finally caught up to him. Also, Alex Gordon was caught stealing. Aggressive is fine, reckless is not.
  
• Alcides Escobar still isn't hitting well, but at least he's contributing a bit more lately.
• Can somebody clone Matt Treanor's batting eye? It's getting to be mind-boggling how he almost never offers at something outside of the strike zone.

And now it's time for a 3-game series again -- gotta say, I've had quite enough of the 2-game series this year, and I'm glad the Royals won't have another one until September. A sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals would be real nice, right about now, don'tcha think?