Escape

The Royals offense once again did its part but the pitchers tried pretty hard to make it for naught as KC withstood a late comeback tonight for a 8-5 win. Rookie J.P. Howell came out for his first major league start -- against a decent lineup -- and was better than anyone could have hoped in going 5 IP and allowing only 1 ER on 4 hits and 2 BB with 8 Ks. I wasn't able to see any of it unfortunately, but he must have looked at least decent. He's already the second best starter on the staff behind D.J. Carrasco since Greinke isn't doing much positive, Lima is a GAS CAN, Anderson is hurt and now on the 60-day DL, Bautista is hurt and under lock and key somewhere since we never hear anything about him; Runelvys has been solid his last couple starts, tho. If Howell can approximate tonight's performance every couple or three starts, he will be a most welcome addition and I'll bite my tongue for all that "rushing thru the system" talk. The offense carried over the momentum of Friday's last 2 innings with 5 players having a 3-hit game tonight. Berroa, meanwhile, was 0-6 in the leadoff spot. 0000000000 walks again. Leadoff=get on base, right? Not in Angel's case. Plus screwup blows a catch in the 9th that by the grace of God didn't come back to kill the win. Teahen also goes 0-fer but had a big defensive play in the 8th to make up for it somewhat. ((Just saw Howell's BT highlights, looked decent. The "experts" on there compared him to Mark Buehrle. I'd take that. I guess the 8 Ks were the most in a Royals debut since Split himself.))

Anyway, getting back to the O tonight, DeJesus did the getting on base with 3 hits, Graffanino also came thru with 3 hits behind DeJesus and then Brown did a good job cleaning up after them with 4 hits and 2 RBI on 2 ground rule doubles. He's smoking pitches every game. Terrence Long is doing the same and also had a 3-hit night with 3 RBI. Gotay had 2 hits but left 5 on base and Buck had another great game in going 3-5 with a nice roundtripper. He's another one who may make me eat some words. Buck's swinging a great bat lately. Let's hope he's catching on. Brown and Long are making it hard to keep Costa up, although he may make a good 4th OF. He could probably use some more development time at this point, tho. Why not send him down to AAA and bring up Guiel as a 4th OF until '06??? Costa's getting a cup of coffee, let him have the whole coffeemaker next season. The bullpen was shaky tonight. MacDougal was his usual shaky self with great stuff. Too bad he doesn't know where it's going 99 percent of the time after it leaves his hand. Got revenge with a K of Glaus. Berroa's gaffe hurt but MacDougal found a way to get past it. Good win, but isn't any win good?

Staff ace Carrasco takes the mound Sunday afternoon. Let's take a second road series in a row, OK KC???