Pythagorean W-L and Other Notes

First off, great win for the Boys in Blue today.

Secondly, our pythagorean W-L is 13-16, a full 3-games better than our 10-19 record. One could interpret the pythag. W-L two ways. Either our manager is not putting our players in the best situations to succeed, or the Royals have flat-out been unlucky and will improve over the course of the season. I think it's a combination of both, although the latter will likely be the greater factor over 162 games.

Some positives:
- In the league, the Royals are in the middle of the pack in terms of singles and doubles. They obviously lead in triples (with 8).
- Even though the Royals haven't been *too* impressive in this category, they are much better than last year at drawing the walk. They've drawn 85, or almost 3 a game. That's not where we should be, but it's not bad.
- The Royals have a 4.30 team ERA. That's surprisingly low considering the number of runs our bullpen (Wellemeyer, Peralta, Riske) have choked up this year.
- The Royals K:BB ratio is exactly where it should be. 85 walks to 160 K's. Again, both categories are a *significant* improvement over what we've seen in years' past.
- The Royals' pitchers have also only given up 22 HR's this year (29 games). Again, a marked improvement ("The K"'s park factor would certainly be a factor in this. However, it's still an improvement.)

Some negatives:
- Opponents are still hitting .281 against our pitchers.
- We need to improve our strikeout numbers, as hitters. 226 strikeouts is *head and shoulders* above anyone else in the league.
- We're only hitting .248. Gload, Sweeney, Grudz, Buck, DeJesus, and Teahen are all performing about as expected this season. If Gordon and Pena step it up, this number could improve slightly.
- Buddy Bell has cost us 2 games thus far and possibly (although not likely) 1 more.

I really think Bannister should be sent to the bullpen when Hudson & Elarton return. Hudson should also move to the bullpen. Elarton won't be useful in the 'pen because of his fly-ball tendencies and atrociously low K/9, K:BB levels. Plus, Huddy at least has some experience as a decent-to-average big-leaguereliever.

We can't mess with what's working, and simply taking Greinke out of the rotation would be a vast, vast, vast mistake. Not that I'm expecting Moore to do that.

Don't forget about John Bale.

Here's my rotation and bullpen after their returns:
SP - Meche
SP - Perez
SP - Greinke
SP - De La Rosa
SP - Elarton
LRP - Bannister
MRP - Duckworth
MRP - Hudson
MRP - Bale
SU - Gobble
SU - Riske
CP - Soria

However, I have one question. Does Peralta still have options left? If so, I say we send him to Omaha, at least for a couple weeks until Elarton gets back. Wellemeyer gets DFA'ed. Musser gets sent back to Omaha. What does everyone think?

(Although, honestly, I think we'd be better off without Elarton on the team. Although it is very, very, very encouraging that he has gone from our #1 pitcher to our #5 guy, even if the injury aided him there a little bit).