180°??? Royals 11, CWS 7; Royals 4, CWS 3

The last time I posted about the major league Royals, they were 0-2 and coming off a horrible loss to Detroit. Three days later they're .500 and going for a sweep of the reigning world champs. If that's not a 180° turn, I don't know what is. How they got set for the sweep is somewhat interesting as they came back from a 6-0 deficit Friday to beat the White Sox and got a late blast from the $11 million man Mike Sweeney to get the win Saturday. Friday's game started much like the entirety of Wednesday's 14-3 loss to Detroit went as wannabe starter or closer Jeremy Affeldt got blasted like Charlie Brown on the mound to the tune of 6 ER on 7 hits over 4 IP. The new pickups chipped in as Reggie Sanders drove in Grudz to start a 4th-inning rally. Brown, Berroa and Buck doubled to bring in the rest of the runs in the 5-run spurt. The Royals tied it at 7 on a wild pitch and then a sac fly by Mientkiewicz, so the momentum was heavily rolling their way. Another Buck double and a DeJesus double gave the Royals a 2-run lead in the 6th and KC tacked on two more runs thanks to Teahen's first hit of the season and Mientkiewicz knocked in a run on a FC. Needless to say, that's a somewhat astonishing turn of events after the 13 innings from Wednesday's game to Friday. Grudz, Sanders, Buck, Berroa and Brown had 2-hit days. Mike Wood got the win after getting torched by Detroit Wednesday before getting ejected. His ERA is still 18.00. Another bad outcome in the game was DeJesus leaving with a hamstring injury that kept him out of today's game.

Then, today, the Royals got a good start out of Bautista and got good bullpen outings from Luke Hudson (once again), Dessens and Burgos. The offense took a while to get going but finally put some runs on the board as Sanders got a clutch 2-run double in the 6th to give KC a 2-1 lead and, after Sisco got touched up for 2 runs to blow his first save of the season in the 8th, the Royals had their backs against the wall. Grudz singled to lead off the bottom of the frame and Mike Sweeney (give credit where it's due) came back from a previous HBP to knock a Cliff Politte pitch into the left field stands and give KC the 4-3 lead. Burgos promptly came in after the Royals did no further damage and struck out Mackowiak and Uribe before getting Ross Gload to fly out to end it. All in all, two good wins. It's easy to forecast this season could be a series of ups and downs -- remember, KC swept the Yankees in 2005 -- but we'll see how Sunday's series finale goes and how the team responds in upcoming series as the true identity of the team is revealed.