Billy Butler: more than just a delicate flower

Well, the Big Donkey fell just short of hitting for the cycle last night. All he needed was a triple.

This guy was in our yard the other night, and he runs exactly like Butler:

Does anybody else think the whole Soria thing is as dumbass corrupt as the Dubya White House? The Royals and Hillman are lying. They didn't withhold info about Soria's condition in order get a competitive edge. That doesn't make any sense. They didn't know he was stiff until Hillman failed to pitch him for more than a week. And that's why he was stiff!

Zack Greinke. Ho hum.

Greinke goes tonight

"I like the guacamole,” Greinke said. “Now, I don’t really love the guacamole. So I get it when I feel like it. They changed their guacamole from $1.50 to $1.80. I mean, $1.50 is already pretty darn high. So they changed it to $1.80, and I’ll never again get guacamole.”

"So, when I saw her at the library, I said, 'I don't want to look like a loser going to the library during lunch, but...I've got two positives. One, I hate lunch. Two, I could try to put some moves on her.'"

"She, like, has a special mouth...so that her breath is usually pretty good, but she complains about mine a lot."

"There definitely will be flying cars, but whether there'll be flying cars for most people to use, it'll probably take a long time to straighten everything out, all the rules and hassles. It'll take a while to figure out how to keep people from crashing into each other."

"This was the first time Billy Butler's ever looked...like a defensive specialist over there."

“There’s a lot more interesting stuff going on right now,” he said. “They should have something else on the cover. Playoff basketball or something else. So it’s a mistake. They’ll probably sell their least amount of magazines in a long time - except when NASCAR was on the cover.”

P.S. Dear God: Please let Meche be OK.

Who cares about Banny's strikeout-to-walk ratio?

Nice win last night. Not sure how Banny does it. Smoke and mirrors?

If Guillen can have one of his hot months while the starting pitching is smoking, we might be in really great shape by the end of May.

But we haven't addressed this Soria thing yet. We have a theory. We think Soria's shoulder got stiff because HE HADN'T PITCHED IN NINE DAYS. We don't think he was hurt at all, until Hillman failed to use him properly. Baseball pitchers are like racing horses. You have to give them the proper workouts and monitor everything they do. Anyway, we think this is all Hillman's fault. If we're right, that is just about the worst thing a Royals manager has ever done. And that's saying a lot.

But Hillman is saying, in retrospect, that he didn't get Soria into those games because he was hurt, not because the manager was an idiot. We're calling bullshit.

Hopefully Soria isn't ruined for the year. These things rarely turn out well.

P.S. You know by now that Greinke is going to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Kill a chicken or sacrifice a goat or something.

P.P.S. Soria didn't pitch much in Spring Training either. It seems obvious that he just needs to get back in the groove. Or maybe he needs surgery?

This post was actually going to be interesting at one point

We are two games behind. We actually took drunken notes during Banny's start, but we forgot to post them yesterday and now they're out of date. Oh well. Here are some highlights anyway:

The right side of the infield is a freak show!

How good would Callaspo be if he was a good 2B?

Baseball players are usually dumb as shit; but the look in Callaspo's eyes leads us to believe that he would score approximately 7 on th ACT.

Banny!

Freak show! We're ready to sign Grudz. We really do like Callaspo as a hitter, but he's a horrible 2B.

If fucking Farnsworth (Farnyard) comes into this game, we're going to shit our pants.

Banny!!

Aviles is lost. Our middle infield is a disaster. Sign Grudz! (God forbid we start to think about TPJ.)

Banny!!!

Moneyball!! Doh! Butler is slooowow.

Jamie Wright is alright.

The recovery of the global economy and the future of the free world depend upon The Mexicutioner's right shoulder.

Fuckin Olivo. We've had it with that guy.

Strike Three. Put that in your Peace Pipe, Chief Wahoo!

OK. That was Wednesday night. Now it's Friday. That thing yesterday was a debacle.

What's wrong with Mahay?

Shit list: Farnyard, Mahay, Olivo, Aviles, Butler.

Non-shit list: Gil, Zack, Davies, Banny, Teahen, Callaspo (as a hitter), Butler (as a first baseman, believe it or not), Jacobs (as a DH), Coco.

Soria's making things a little more interesting this year.

P.S. The original post had some stuff in it about lesbians, art majors, scotch, Jesus, lubricants, Pi, and Eddie Money. But we cut all that junk because it was either too much information or because it just no longer seemed funny. Kinda like the rest of the stuff we actually did post.

P.P.S. Does the Tony Gonzalez deal mean the Chiefs might draft a TE like, say, Chase Coffman in the third round? Or do they already have another TE? We forget. Regardless, a lot of shit is going to go down with the Chiefs in the next day or so.

And we need you today, oh Banny!

We were busy/distracted last night and didn't get to listen to the game closely. We thought it was going to be a real boring stinker anyway, and then we were surprised the Royals came back. The question for those of you who actually watched or listened to the whole thing is: How can we blame this loss on Hillman? Feel free to be creative in your answers.

Obviously the Royals grounded into too many double plays. And it sounded like Jacobs just missed a home run that would have been the difference in the long run.

One thing we know is: We are sick of that turd Olivo. Get rid of him and his whack-attack approach at the plate, and let Buck and B. Pena play. Also, Olivo, who throws well, is terrible at catching the ball. This is a bad trait in a catcher.

Tonight, we're going to listen to every inning (unless the Royals are getting killed). And we're gonna take notes. So, depending on how much beer/scotch we drink, tomorrow's post should be fun.

P.S. When we hinted that Josh Hamilton was the Destroyer of Worlds last week, we must have been thinking of Grady Sizemore.

P.P.S. Yes, we are evoking Barry Manilow in the headline.

P.P.P.S. We can't get enough of this HoRambo guy on Royals Corner.

P.P.P.P.S. When the season started last year, Banny was our No. 2 starter. And still there are some who insist that there's no such thing as progress.

Seems like something Seitzer could fix

They're pitching Aviles outside and he's trying to pull everything. It's very obvious. Seems like something Seitzer could fix. Also, with two strikes, the pitcher will try to get Aviles to chase a high fastball almost every time.

Hochevar is kicking ass in Omaha.

All of the teams in the AL Central look pretty even to us. If we can minimize the Farnsworth effect, we like our chances.

This just in: Bannister is up, HoRam to the pen. So whose place will Hochevar ultimately take in the rotation, Banny's or Ponson's?

It should end up being a deep rotation, in addition to being a good rotation.

Yes, we are really starting to like our chances of being in it at the trade deadline this year. (Seems like we said the same thing this time last year.)

For now, We just need to keep tweaking the lineup to get the most out of our offensive players, and to hide our bad defensive players late in close games.

And Trey needs to understand this very clearly: His best pitchers in the pen are Tejeda, Cruz and Soria. In that order.

But Greinke was fantastic!

Well, Trey Hillman leads the majors in blown saves.

But we're not going to talk about that, or anybody else, except to say that Zack's game the other night was beautiful.

All of the other Royals blogs have the obvious grillings of Hillman and Farnsworth. We don't even want to contemplate it anymore.

P.S. Signing Farnsworth for too much money and then actually pitching him in high leverage situations is the definintion of compounding a mistake.

P.P.S. The infield defense sucks.

P.P.P.S. Teahen is money again.

Alex Gordon has a BIG boo boo

For the love of Bob Saget, what are we going to do now! Son of bitch! Shit. Jesus, where is this team going to find some offense? It's time to panic. Or drink heavily. Or whatever.

He's not concerned with yesterday

He knows constant change is here today
He's noble enough to know what's right
But weak enough not to choose it
He's wise enough to win the world
But fool enough to lose it.

Ponson hasn't been half bad. He's worth more than Farnsworthless and/or HoRambo.

The pitching's likely to be less impressive in Texas, no matter who's on the mound, but that's to be expected.

Jacobs is as advertised; bad defense, big stick. He's going to hit a lot of dingers, and, so far, he's been a pretty patient hitter. We like him.

Olivo is the least patient hitter in baseball. If he doesn't hit an occasional home run, he's less than worthless.

We've been saying for at least a year that the Royals need another right-handed BAT. Everybody kept telling us how good we were against LHP last year -- but we STILL need a right-handed BAT (even when Guillen comes back).

We're going to need another left-handed pitcher before the season's through, too.

Did anybody else notice that the St. Louis Blues are in the playoffs?

Coco Crisp is going to have a fantastic year. We have always liked him, and we like him even better now.

Dejesus needs to start hitting.

If only two pitchers on this team are going to suck, Fartsworth and HoRambo, then this team is going to be really good.

We can't stop watching crab fishing and Dog The Bounty Hunter on the teevee, even though the stories remain the same.

We'd like to see a lot of Callaspo at 2B and Teahen in RF while Guillen's out.

We'd also like to see a little more of B. Pena.

If you've got Gordon, Jacobs and Teahen available to start against a LHP, you should probably try not to start any two of them. Hence the need for another RH bat. Bloomquist and TPJ don't count.

Josh Hamilton is going to be worth at least two runs per game this weekend, all by himself. That dude rakes.

Imagine how good the Rangers would be if they had a few of the Royals pitchers to go along with Millwood.

Later.

It's Getaway Day!

Go Royals! (This artwork has NOTHING to do with Royals baseball. We just found some sweet Rush art on this site.)

The Bird was The Dude

Big Donkeys watched Mark Fidrych pitch against the Yankees last night, thanks to classic TV.

Big Donkeys thinks that dude (Fidrych) personified everything that was cool about the seventies.

Big Donkeys thinks The Bird was a good name for Fidrych and for Charlie Parker.

Big Donkeys noticed that there were a lot more black dudes playing back then. More white guys too.

Big Donkeys thinks Ron LeFlore and Chet Lemon and Mickey Rivers were almost as cool as Fidrych.

Big Donkeys would slit his wrists if his team was off to the same start as the Indians.

Big Donkeys thinks the baseball intelligentsia might have been wrong about the Indians this season.

Big Donkeys thinks John Buck is the coolest Mormon on the planet right now.

Big Donkeys is wondering if Gordon and Butler are ever going make something of themselves.

P.S. Big Donkeys is pretty sure Ross Gload batted clean-up for the Marlins yesterday.

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain

We suddenly decided Friday night (after a few beers) that we absolutely had to go to KC and watch the Royals play the Yankees in The New K on Saturday. So Junior and I picked up Mets Fan Rob about noon on Saturday and headed to the city, where we met Jeremy and Motl, who were still recovering from the previous day. The weather was not bad at all. We all went out to the complex and drank lots of beer (Junior drank Dr. Pepper) and watched the Royals lose.

We are in agreement with Jeremy...There's something not right about The New K. People who live in the suburbs and like to eat at Texas Roadhouse and whatnot will love it, of course. If you like high-maintenance blonde girls with fake boobs and California tans, you will probably love The New K. But, if we were Hugh Hefner, we would have an entirely different stable (lots of brunettes who are cynically and deadly smart).

You will never again see a long home run ball come gently to rest on the expansive grass beyond the outfield wall. Your eyes will never be drawn to that ball again three innings later, as it lays there mocking the pitcher in the dugout who actually let another man hit a ball that far. You will never look at the fountains, all alone in their majesty, the same again. And so on. The place has a different soul now, and that soul can be bought and sold.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. The New K is awesome, in the same way that lots of stuff in Vegas is awesome.

Oh well. Big win yesterday. Didn't see that happening.

P.S. We didn't watch Saturday's game very close anyway. The Royals were out of it after the first inning and never got back in.

Today is Opening Day at The New K!

(Jeremy, Motl and Trish)

We received the following text at 9:10 a.m.: Start the jeremy before third inning beer math.

We left the following comment on his Facebook wall (we're starting to get so social with all of this new media): Wear a Snuggie!

OK. We're willing to entertain the notion that Dayton Moore might not be one of the biggest dildos on the planet (Did you SEE the way Davies was pitching yesterday?). But we're still down on Hillman, and we certainly don't look forward to seeing Meatwagon Fartsworth any time soon during a close game.

OK. OK. We're bailing out of work early again in order to drive to Springfield and watch the game on the TV. Hopefully the Fat Aruban will pitch well. But, just in case all of our starters don't pitch like Cy Young, lets hope the bats break out, because there's nothing better than beating the Yankees on Opening Day at The K.

P.S. How down are you with our man, Coco?

Big Donkeys just wants to be your friend

The scary good thing about last night is that Greinke could have been better. We've seen him have better control, but he was unhittable all the same. We kept waiting for him to break off one of those 55 mph curves, but he's become much more of a power pitcher.

OK. Imagine this is Facebook. Here are your Big Donkeys status updates:

Big Donkeys thinks Gavin Floyd was pretty much dealing too.

Big Donkeys is wondering what Carlos Quentin did to piss Grienke off?

Big Donkeys thinks Quentin must have pissed Greinke off at some point last season.

Big Donkeys thinks this Royals-Chisox thing is gonna get bloody this year.

Big Donkeys can't wait for somebody to give A.J. a left hook to the right jaw (and a sucker punch to the testicle region).

Big Donkeys to the rest of the American League: If you Cruz, you lose!

Big Donkeys is just glad that Hillman didn't have to make any real managerial decisions last night.

Big Donkeys thinks Hillman manages scared.

Big Donkeys has to go back to work now.

Farnsworth is a piece of shit

We TOLD you this would happen. Baseball players and baseball managers and general managers are so freakin dumb. Trey Hillman, who spent all that time in Japan, probably couldn't solve even the most basic Sudoku puzzle. Dayton Moore is probably only the fifth smartest guy at a Baptist convention where they're trying to figure out how to redeem all of the gays. Kyle Farnsworth and all of the other players (except Banny) possess the intelligence of your average trash man, though that's probably not kind to trash men (we have experience in the waste management business). Take Billy Beane. He's just slightly smarter than the average trash man. In the world of baseball, that makes Beane a freakin genius.

So we all knew that giving Farnsworth a two-year contract for approximately 85 percent more money than he is worth was a bad idea. And we all knew that bringing Farnsworth in to protect a one-run lead in the eighth inning was a bad idea, and that it was an even worse idea to let him pitch to Thome. (We didn't even listen to the Thome at-bat; we KNEW what was going to happen.) But do you think Hillman will go to Cruz in this situation next time? Seems like that's what somebody with average intelligence would do, so we're not counting on it...

P.S. Most of you already know that Ponson is going to shit the bed on Friday, but, then, you aren't officially affiliated with a Major League Baseball team.

P.P.S. Go Zack!

The day of reckoning has come

OK. So we juggled some things and we are going home from work in time to listen to the game. Or is it on cable TV here in the armpit of the Ozarks? If it's not on TV, we'll have to listen to the White Sox announcers on XM. The White Sox announcers, of course, are some of the most brutal in the American League. But it's kind of fun to listen to their broadcast when the ChiSox are losing to the Royals.

We are going to have to tone down some of our Opening Day rituals, because we have to be productive tomorrow. There will be some cheap scotch involved, but it will have to be mixed with vitamin water. There will also be beer (obviously). And we'll be keeping score according to our patented system that nobody else can figure out.

Prediction: Jose Guillen will be freezing his ass off out there.

Picks to click: Coco Crisp, Mark Teahen and Billy Butler (Butler takes Buehrle deep).

Watch out if: Farnsworth comes in to protect a one-run lead in the eighth.

So this is that painting we posted around this time last year, the same one that some art gallery in New York mistook as being real art. They wanted to see more of our work, but we didn't really have more. This was painted with drugstore water colors on an old piece of packaging cardboard. We gave it to Mets Fan Rob for safe keeping. If it ever gets wet, it will be ruined. Enjoy!

P.S. We call this painting Good Times because it reminds us of something J.J. Walker would have painted.

Zack Greinke is one of THE best things about baseball season

“That wasn’t even that bad of a pitch,” Affeldt barked at himself again.

“Actually,” Zack said, “it was a pretty bad pitch.”

Affeldt looked up at Greinke. “Thanks, Zack,” Affeldt said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“No,” Zack said, “really, I went back to the clubhouse and looked at the pitch on video. It was a really bad pitch. Right over the middle of the plate, and you got it up. I mean it was a bad pitch.”

“Thanks, Zack,” Affeldt said again.

“Right down the middle. I could have hit it out,” Greinke said.

Affeldt looked into Greinke’s eager face and just shook his head.

“Thanks, Zack,” he said.

“Yeah,” Greinke said, and he walked back to his seat in the dugout.

HERE is Posnanski's Greinke story in full, in case you haven't read it.

Stupid weather

Oh well. The real Opening Day isn't until Friday, anyway. That's when Sidney the Mighty Aruban Eskimo takes the mound against the overmatched Yankees. But that doesn't mean we're not very anxious for the tune-up Opening Day event in Chicago, which will hopefully happen tomorrow...

Warning

We might decide to post a picture of an old painting featuring naked breasts on Monday morning. Regardless, we'll try to do something to commemorate Opening Day.

If we smile, tell us some bad news

Billy Butler, Mark Teahen (again), Alex Gordon, Jose Guillen and Bryan Pena all hit dingers yesterday.

The Royals lead all teams this spring with 54 homers.

Digest that.

Now if we can just get the pitching and defense sorted out.

And Soria got shelled again! There's always something to be very worried about in RoyalsLand, which is probably a good thing for us, because we are VERY neurotic.

P.S. Remember when, this time of the year, you were always saying, "If Sweeney can just stay healthy..."

Glad that Gload is gone

What now? What happens the first time the Royals have a slim lead going into the ninth inning? Does TPJ go in to play SS? Does Aviles slide to second? Does Bloomy come in? Does this mean Teahen slides over to 1B? Or is Shealy going to make the roster?

OK. We feel compelled to address this whole Ponson fiasco. It seems as though the only reason Ponson is going to take up space (and a lot of it) on the roster is because the Royals need a "veteran" to pitch against the Yankees on Opening Day at The K. But why can't they pitch Meche, Davies and Hochevar in Chicago and then throw Greinke on Opening Day in KC? Why! After all, Hochevar is a ground ball pitcher. Let him take the mound in that little park on the South Side. And, if the Royals really are bent on Hochevar getting more grooming in Omaha, why can't they just throw Ponson in the third game in Chicago and save Greinke? It's only a few games difference, and we're pretty sure that Greinke wouldn't be offended. The KC gig is an honor. Why? Why!

We are a little disappointed with the KC media when it comes to covering these things. Does anybody know what happened to Soria the other day? Was his velocity down? Did he just get shelled? This is the type of thing that fragile Royals fans need to know. Also, how is Aviles LOOKING at SS to those who have actually been watching in Arizona? We want to know how he looks in the field, not just what his dubious defensive metrics were last year. We need to be reassured that he can play the position.

That is all for now. (But we're anxious to see how the final roster shakes out.)

P.S. Did you see where the Marlins just flat out released Dallas McPherson?

P.P.S. Would the Royals really grab Sheffield to platoon with Jacobs at DH and maybe play a little OF?

P.P.P.S. Holy crap! Just looked it up...Gary Sheffield is older than ME!