Guillen hit a ninth inning home run off Yankee closer Mariano Rivera, his fourth in the last three games, and Joakim Soria slammed the door in the last of the ninth, leading the Royals to a 3-2 victory and a split of the four game series.

Guillen has been swinging the bat very well as of late, making me very sorry that I questioned the amount of money the Royals spent for him.  Trey Hillman once said that he had a passion for the game, and it has proven to be true.  By the way, through seven games against the Yanks, the Royals are 4-3, with one more series to go in mid-August.

I like my crow barbecued, please.

Let's face it.  The White Sox swept the Royals in South Chicago last week, and our local nine, with the exception of the 15-inning marathon, were pathetic.  That's all I can really say about that trip, so on to New York.

Friday night, the Royals accomplished something that they haven't done a lot of lately - win in New York.  Behind Kyle Davies, our losing streak breaker from one week ago, the Royals won 2-1.  On this night, they had pitching but no offense.

Yesterday afternoon, both teams had offense but no pitching.  Joakim Soria blew his first save opportunity of the season and the Royals lost 12-11.  Today, the Royals didn't show us enough of either pitching or offense, as they bowed 6-3, despite Jose Guillen's third home run in two games.

Luckily, the team with the worst record in baseball doesn't reside here.  The way I see it, that's the only positive.  This team needs balance, and soon.

The Royals snapped their 12 game losing streak last night, defeating Cleveland and C.C. Sabathia 4-2.  That, along with a John Mayberry bobblehead, made for a fantastic and enjoyable evening.  The game was exciting from start to finish, and had its good, bad and ugly.  Here's the list:

THE GOOD - David DeJesus had a magical night, hitting a third inning home run and scoring what proved to be the go-ahead run in the fifth.  Kyle Davies wobbled in his first start of the season, but pitched better than the last time I saw him versus Minnesota last year.  Even JOHN BUCK had a good night.  Finally, Joakim Soria, although he gave up an eighth inning run in his first two-inning save opportunity, pitched well enough to save it.  I LOVED "WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE!!"

THE BAD - Alex Gordon couldn't catch up to Sabathia all night and Jose Guillen was hitless as well.

THE UGLY - Joey Gathright lost a ball in the lights in the eighth, and Guillen and Tony Pena, Jr. couldn't get there either, setting up a "Bermuda Triangle" with possible problems.  Thankfully, nothing materialized.

The game was exciting from the start, and it felt so good to finally see a win.  Hopefully, with road games against the White Sox and Yankees coming up this week, the boys in blue could give us even more wins to write about.

THIS WAS FUN!!

Guillen is becoming my kind of player - the kind that isn't afraid to say how he feels.  Here are some bits and pieces of his thoughts, as published by mlb.com:

"This is all on us," Guillen said. "This is not about what kind of moves the manager made. He cares about us, and he wants to win more than anyone. He's preparing every single day to win and works hard every day. And we've been letting him down."  

"We've got 25 people," he said. We've got to play as a team, win as a team and lose as a team. We've got too many babies here. They don't know how to play the game and play the game right, the way it's supposed to be played.

"That's the problem here. Now I know why this organization has been losing for a while."

One thing more.... 610 sports reporters Neal Jones and Marty Wall shared this afternoon that he, Guillen, was just as much to blame for the current skid as anyone else.

Jose Guillen is 100% right.  The team is badly off-balance, and needs several wins SOON.  The way I see it, there is potential.  They just need to fulfill it. 

I didn't look at the full picture during the Royals-Blue Jays series, because I had focused strictly on the Royals' pathetic offense.  My responder from yahoo.com pointed out that It is mainly because of Toronto's dominant pitching.  They do indeed have the lowest ERA in MLB.  In addition, he said that there was nothing wrong with KC's offense.  I couldn't disagree more.

Even with the 8 runs the Royals scored last night against Minnesota, the Royals have scored 192 runs against their opponents' 247.  Something needs to be done.  I hope it is - SOON!!

Thank you for your commentary, and I do invite more in the future.  See you down the road.

The Royals have lost 7 straight games, including yesterday's 3-1 loss at Toronto.  During the Toronto series, the offense has produced a grand total of 2 runs.  The one thing that I have noticed the most is the lack of balance between pitching, offense and defense.

To me, the Royals have taken two steps forward and three steps back, and it's very discouraging to watch right now.  The ship that Trey Hillman is commanding needs to right itself soon, or people are going to be desperate to watch another pathetic offense in 2 months.  As a baseball fan, I'm hopeful.

Boston's Jon Lester became only the second pitcher in history to no-hit the Royals, winning 7-0.  He struck out 9, walked 2, and had dynamite defense behind him.  What made this story more inspirational was that Lester was diagnosed with lymphoma no more than 4 years ago.  To me, that is remarkable.

By the way, the first to no-hit the Royals did so in Kansas City.  The legendary Nolan Ryan threw that gem.

Hopefully, the next one will be thrown by one of our pitchers.  Time will tell.

In past entries, I've been very hard on Jose Guillen, wondering if the money spent to bring the man to Kansas City was worth it.  This afternoon, during the Royals 9-3 victory over Florida, I was handed several very good reasons that the money WAS worth it.

He has a 10-game hitting streak.  From what I saw over the last few days, he's been getting good pitches to swing at.  In addition, he hit a very convincing home run in the late innings of this game to finally give me reasons to believe.  Can he continue this pace through Boston and Toronto? Time will tell.

By the way, the Royals have won six of their last seven games.  I'm very much encouraged.  Mr. Guillen, keep up the good work.

Prior to Trey Hillman taking over as manager, the Royals really haven't had the best of teams.  Winning streaks would happen, but wouldn't last very long.  With KC's 7-6 win at Florida last night, I really believe that the Royals, for the first time in several years, have an honest-to-goodness winning streak on their hands.  Last night's win was their fifth in a row.

Jose Guillen, a frequent target of mine, had three hits.  Miguel Olivo, filling in for new proud papa John Buck, hit a home run that proved to be the difference in the game.  Overall, the Royals played very aggressive baseball.  I like what I'm seeing and hearing.

As I've said before, Trey Hillman made a believer out of me.  The way I see it, as long as the Royals keep their focus, bigger and better things can and very definitely will happen.  Keep up the good work, KC!!!

As the Royals were defeating the Florida Marlins 7-6(more on this in my next entry),  John and his wife Brooke became the parents of twin boys.  Buck wasn't in the lineup for Thursday's home finale with Detroit because he was making sure that everything was all right with his wife and new family.  He stayed behind in KC last night with his wife as their family grew, and was placed on temporary leave by the Royals.  Regardless of how anyone felt about him, you have to admire a man who has his priorities in order.  John Buck definitely does.  Congratulations to him, Brooke, and their new little boys.

The lesson I learned about John Buck was this - regardless of the batting average, as long as priorities are in order, you have to admire the total person.

I will grant you that the Royals are 17-21, and in 4th place in the AL Central.  I will also grant you that the Royals' offense has been very inconsistent.  However, as KCSP radio's Neal Jones pointed out this afternoon, the Royals have been more competitive this year than in recent years.  In spite of the two losses that I've personally witnessed so far, I think that Neal is right.

For years, the Royals have been a sports afterthought.  This year, they've improved.  To me, it's high time that more people in the KC sports media noticed.  It's all right, folks.  This is a team on the rise.

The phrase goes like this - Games are won with pitching and defense.  Although the Royals have shown improvement in both since last year, there is one element that is currently missing, which is offense.  In the last three games, one with Cleveland and two here against the L.A. Angels, the Royals have scored a grand total of 5 runs.  That, ladies and gentlemen, will not win a lot of ballgames.

Jose Guillen, a frequent target of this series of blogs, has been inconsistent, to say the least.  In addition, the Royals hitters, in general, have not been very patient at the plate.  Both of these facts, to me, are a big reason why the Royals are currently 14-18 leading into tonight's series finale against the Angels.  Like fans that I've listened to on sports radio, I truly believe that something needs to be done.  Another bat would be nice, but what I think would be nicer would be a power hitter who doesn't strike out as much.

It's true that pitching and defense win SOME baseball games, but not all.  The way I see it, the Kansas City Royals need a more balanced attack.  They're on the move, but, as Trey Hillman himself has said, they can be better.

I've branched out my good, bad and ugly to include pitching, hitting and defense this time around.  Here we go:

THE GOOD - Ross Gload went 2 for 3 at the plate and scored one of the two Royals runs.  In the field, he had a fantastic game as well.  Gil Meche, who was a previous target of mine, pitched much better this time around than he did when I saw him against Minnesota. 

THE BAD - Alex Gordon struck out 3 times, and grounded into a ninth inning double play.  I was unimpressed with Joel Peralta, who threw way too many first pitch balls.  Jose Guillen, who supposedly had a rocket outfield arm, had an opportunity to throw out what proved to be the Toronto go-ahead run and BLEW IT!!!  WHAT WAS HE THINKING?!!

THE UGLY - The Royals 9th inning defense.  In Little League games, when you'd see three infielders converge in a triangle "trying" to catch the ball, the ball would always drop in front of all three.  That happened in the ninth, and cost 2 runs.  TREY HILLMAN HAS TO BE FURIOUS!!!

Let's face it, folks.  The Royals are in a tailspin right now, although they did win 2 of 3 from Toronto.  Their next stop is Texas for three against the Rangers, and I sincerely hope that the Royals do find a way to turn this around.  Slumps don't last forever, right?

See ya down the road.

I'm starting to wonder whether the man is truly the #1 starter that the Royals paid $55 million for.  With last night's 15-1 home debacle at the hands of the Cleveland Indians, Meche's record stands at 0-3 with an 8.00 ERA.  He hasn't been consistent at all this young season, and quite frankly, he's not the current #1 starter.  Brian Bannister is.

I'd like to think that the reason for this start was only Meche's bad luck, but I'd be naive to think so.  I'd like to see the man do better and be the pitcher that he was at times last year.  He talked about what he had to do after the loss last night, but talking alone isn't going to get it done.  As former manager Whitey Herzog once said, "You have to go out and play." Don't talk about what you have to do.  Do it.

The man is a veteran, and knows how to bounce back.  I sincerely hope that he does.  If so, I'll recognize this in a future take.  Until then........

See ya down the road.

When the Royals lost yesterday, 6-5 to Oakland, mlb.com quoted a player as saying that they were upset about being at the .500 level with a 9-9 record.  When I read this, I thought that they would actually do something to change their fortunes.  Today, their fortunes DID change - but for the worst.

Today, Oakland completed a sweep of the Royals with a 7-1 win, which left the team at 9-10.  The last time I checked, talking about winning and actually doing it are two different things.  Trey Hillman said that this Royals team would be better, but quite frankly, they haven't even come close to showing it, especially this past week.  Hopefully, their fortunes will change for the better beginning Tuesday against Cleveland here in Kansas City and I'll see some improvement next Sunday against Toronto. 

I'm still a believer, but last week was tough.