So, thanks to their dramatic final turn of the Cleveland series, the Royals ended up with a winning record for the month of May. They went 15-13 in the fifth month's games, a nice result after a disastrous start. In fact, as you likely know, after starting 3-14, the Royals have gone 18-14. As Rany noted last night, the Royals are also now 16-11 on the road.

Does this mean anything?

First of all, a monthly split is, inherently, simply an arbitrary marker. There's no meaningful difference between a baseball game on June 1 and one on May 30. Similarly, a monthly split that ran from May 2- June 2, or May 15-June 15, would be equally instructive. It's 30 odd games. Last year, the Royals had one winning month, April, when they went 14-12. In 2010, they had zero, but snagged two in 2009, going 12-10 in April and 15-13 in September (which was followed by an 0-3 October). Going further back, the 2008 Royals had two winning months, going 16-11 in June and 18-8 in September.

But these were all, in essence, bad teams, and they all, in reality, had more losing months than winning ones. But the vagaries of the schedule and the randomness of results and sure, some notion of collectively playing well or poorly, spit out all kinds of monthly results.

But, as a narrative, a winning May fits into something hopeful. Yes, the team started poorly, but look, things are getting better, things are coming together, the future looks bright.

You tell me, does it mean anything?

There's an old baseball saw that says that you shouldn't look at the standings until Memorial Day, or until after Memorial Day or until sometime around that time. It's fairly silly because the baseball season never seems to start on the same day and Memorial Day is also movable. But anyway, here we are. It is, definitively after Memorial Day.

Here are the standings after Memorial Day:

• When you look at the raw numbers, it isn't obvious how Cleveland is doing this. They're 7th in the AL in runs per game, and 12th per game in runs allowed. They've allowed more runs/per than the Royals. They've been outscored by 15 runs. But they're 10-2 in one-run games, which almost entirely explains their record. Kinda.
• The White Sox have played like a classic mediocre team. They're 6th in runs scored and 6th in runs allowed. They hit home runs, like they always do, and that's about it offensively. Right now, Chris Sale and Jake Peavy are carrying the rotation, while Danks, Floyd, and Humber, have, in their own mild ways, struggled a bit.
• Are the Tigers good? They're 8th in runs per game and 10th in runs allowed. Cabrera and Prince Fielder have been fine at the plate, though with likely terrible defense, and they're even getting a .414 OBP out of Austin Jackson. But they middle infield has sucked, and the corner spots have been a clown show. Rick Porcello is essentially Jimmy Gobble at this point, and Max Scherzer is bafflingly ineffective at times.
  
• And the Twins are horrible. Awesome. I thought the Twins were always contenders? I thought their dogged focus on all things old-school inoculated them from the vagaries of life? I thought Gardy grew wins perennially?
  

From a purely competitive standpoint, our Royals seem out of it. Which is where they've been since about Game 15. After the disastrous start and the long losing streak, the Royals haven't been bad, bouncing around .500 and winning two of three here, losing two of three there, but there's no sense that this is a team ready to explode, ready or capable of producing a long winning streak and getting back into the race.

Meanwhile, as it often appears this time of year, we may have a three way race in the Central. It's never quite fully happened, but the White Sox/Tigers/Twins/Indians are often pretty closely matched, you just never quite know whether Detroit or Chicago will randomly be 15 games better at any time. If Detroit is the favorite, then we have to give them credit for getting back into things at some point. Maybe they will.

Royals:

• Dyson sustains bruised hamstring in collision | royals.com: News
• Sam Mellinger | Billy Butler is the Royals’ unsung hero - KansasCity.com
• Offense Around The Horn - Royals Authority
• What's Luck Got to do With It - Kings of Kauffman

Baseball:

• Chone Figgins: M's Won't Play Him, Won't Dump Him - Baseball Nation
• Why the Phillies Should Trade Cole Hamels - Beyond the Box Score
• Pirates DFA One-Season Wonder Nate McLouth - Baseball Nation

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Well, Felipe Paulino is about all we've got, depending on whether or not you're still hoping for a Jose Rosado comeback in the starting rotation. (And well, there's all-time Royals great, Bruce Chen as well.)

The Orioles counter with Wei-Yin Chen. Terribly sorry that we nobody switched the rotations to give us a Chen-Chen matchup. Why cruel world, why?

In his last four games Eric Hosmer hasn't hit that bad. Actually, he's been ok. If not mildly good. Unstoppable baby.

In those last four games (17 PAs) Hosmer has hit .400/.471/.533. That's two doubles, four singles, and two walks in four games.

Can getting back above .200 be that far behind?

Seriously though, if Hosmer is ever going to bounce back and start hitting, he's got to actually, you know, start hitting. Look, he's going to have a hideous season line this year. Two awful months have pretty much guaranteed that. But the journey of a thousand good PAs starts with four or five good games.

Just last year, I called for the dismantling of the Orioles and held them up as an example of relatively well-laid plans not always working out. See, they've had a fair number of players that generated prospect hound cupidity before, and they were all hitting the team around the same time, with the position players more established and a number of young arms ready to join them.

Only, the Orioles stayed pretty terrible.

It was "hopeless" for them, and I advocating a massive tear down: trading Adam Jones, trading Matt Wieters, trading everyone with any perceived value and trying to win in 2015 or 2017.

Now, the Orioles are 28-17. Is there hope after all?

• After years of underwhelming, Adam Jones is hitting .311/.357/.601 while playing a passable (probably) CF. His power spike, so far, may be legitimate, given his age and progress last season. He's under contract for one more season after this one.
  
• Matt Wieters may never justify Matt Wieters Facts, but he's hitting .238/.321/.463 with defense that everyone loves at catcher. He's under team control for years to come.
• Nick Markakis isn't a star, but he's decent. His power has mysteriously declined instead of improving. But he's OK.
  
• Their random signing and extension of JJ Hardy continues to look good.
• And they still have a bunch of young pitchers, although they don't really appear to have turned a huge corner. But they aren't setting records for futility this year, like happened in 2012.

So, I don't actually want to keep running down the Orioles, but you get the idea. These things aren't always linear. Mike Moustakas could look awesome in his early 20s, then be "meh" later on, Markakis style. Eric Hosmer might just be frustrating as hell for the next few years, then become awesome. We might never develop an actual average starting pitcher, but Felipe Paulino could be that #2 starter we've all been dreaming of.

This could be us, in good ways and bad. Of course, the Orioles may have just had a good 45 games. Actually, that's probably just what happened. But maybe not.

Earlier this week, I asked RR readers if they would hire Dayton Moore again. Although I have my own thoughts on the matter -- which certainly slanted the propositional piece I wrote -- I was mostly interested to hear what other fans thought. Well, here are the results:

After 751 votes, 58% of you would hire Dayton again.

In the early stages of the voting, from Sunday night through about midday on Monday, the results were very close to 50/50. Over time however, the "Yes" crowd began to pull away, giving Dayton a healthy, though not huge victory.

Six years later, 42% of Royals fans in this one result feel like, to some extent, the hiring of Dayton Moore hasn't been worth it. That's not exactly parade worthy. One the other hand, Moore still appears to have a large base of support, despite a real lack of results at the Major League level. We're either extremely patient, have very low standards, really love minor league rankings, or some combination of all three.

(Then again, the question I posed was only, "would you hire him again?" which allows for many shades of support, many quite weak.)

Among the commentariat, there's certainly acceptance of the Moore regime. Forget mainstream media critics, I struggle to find even bloggers that out and out want Moore gone. Rany's been critical at times, the boys at Royals Authority have been critical at times, Neyer's certainly been critical, but I don't recall any overt "Moore must go" statements.

So I guess we're all satisfied.

Can you imagine if Mike Moustakas wasn't hitting? Aside from what it would mean for the Royals' offense, think about what it would mean for our psyche. Because here's how the young Royal up and coming hitters of the future stars of tomorrow are performing or have performed: horribly. Basically we have Moose hitting, non-prospect Jarrod Dyson kinda getting on base enough, and garbage.

Moose has posted a .295/.351/.525 line in 151 PAs, with 7 HRs and 11 2Bs. To my eye, this essentially looks like his peak. Maybe someday there will be a little more power or maybe some year he'll have a really high batting average, but this is seems close. Not hatin'. Just sayin' that he's probably not going to become a perennial .600 SLG guy, simply because those guys are extremely rare.

But other than Moose... ugh...

• For the zillionth time, Hosmer. But you know about this and I'm not even going to post his line.
• Then we have Cain, who barely played (17 PAs) and hit .133 (all singles) and that was it. Not really much to go on, but the hideous batting line keeps staring back at us because he's disappeared to DL land.
• He's followed by our sometimes DH, Johnny Giavotella, who is starting to become annoying. The impossible has been achieved, I truly love Chris Getz! In 26 forgettable PAs, Gio has hit .208/.269/.250.

Of course, there is Irving Falu, who has hit .419/.419/.581 in 33 PAs. So his unsustainable excellence can sustain us.

The other young hitter of note is a guy who I have singularly stopped following for good or bad, Alcides Escobar. In around two months he's posted an above average OPS, which I never thought possible, hitting .301/.342/.418. So maybe things aren't so bad after all.

Dayton Moore was hired in 2006. If you could, would you hire him again?

For the purposes of discussion, let's consider the 2006 season to be fully Allard Baird's team. The Royals hired Moore on May 31st and he didn't take over until a few weeks later. From 2002-06, Baird's last five seasons, the Royals averaged 64.2 wins. In my mind, the Royals have just been an unrelenting train of bad the last decade, but those years were rough. That's averaging 64-98, even with a random 83 win season mixed in.

Under Dayton Moore, the Royals have taken a single step forward. From 2007-2011, Moore's first five seasons, the Royals have averaged 69.4 wins. Moore's worst team -- by record -- the 2009 squad, still won 65 games, which was better than Baird's five year average. And, as must be said, the Royals, at both the Major League and especially the minor league level, have spent money much more freely since Moore took over.

We've talked about this a million times, but Moore really tried to win in the short term in the early years of regime. And that attempt, call it the Gil Meche Era, topped out at 75 wins. By the time the farm system started to develop interesting young position players, the team was, after the Greinke trade in 2010, completely starting over in the starting rotation. And it was only in 2010 that Moore started to offer a timetable for rebuilding: 2012.

There's been a part of me that has always wished Moore did a complete teardown from the very beginning. Instead of delaying things. However, what was there to tear down? Could baseball in KC have survived with another three or four 100 loss seasons?

Everyone is in agreement that Dayton Moore inherited garbage. However, six years in, a list of his most productive Major League players is dominated by holdovers from the Baird Era. The Baird minor leagues had no depth, but nevertheless have provided Moore with Billy Butler and Alex Gordon, even that random Mike Aviles MVP-level season. Two of his better Major League contributors were holdovers David DeJesus and Zack Greinke. John Buck is still probably the best catcher we've had, etc.

Here is a complete list of the average or better starting pitchers the Royals have developed in the last decade: Zack Greinke. Still waiting on anyone else.

In some ways, the shape of Moore's results make sense if you want to take a hardcore apologetic stance. The minor leagues were so week, that, like bad recruiting classes in college football, the results weren't fully seen until years later. (To which I respond, you had Mike Aviles happen, there's your random 5 win player appearing out of nowhere. But whatever.)

Now, aside from getting to 75 wins, the height of the Moore Era came last winter, when consensus built that the Royals had the best minor league farm system in baseball. Maybe one of the best farm systems ever, in fact. The depth remains impressive, although the individual components are starting to look a little blurry. There are still a raft of interesting and exciting names, but nothing is guaranteed. There have been some (maybe) good drafts and some (maybe) bad ones. It hasn't been linear, either.

So two points as a way of conclusion. We're scratching the surface of a decade's worth of material here. We could have full paragraphs, pages even, on a number of individual moves, individual drafts, trades made and not made. And then there's the huge and hard to evaluate ownership factor, etc. etc. To a degree, once the years start to pile up, the won-loss record does seem to at least give some kind of sketch of what was going on.

The years roll on, and the Royals still aren't any good.

Secondly, I'm not asking if Moore should be fired. That's a slightly different question. I'm merely asking, knowing what you know now, would you hire him again?

A nice win tonight, to be sure. This is how it is supposed to work for the Royals: some big hits from Billy Butler and one of the young ingenues, decent starting pitching, and the standard issue four relievers to get through three innings okey-doe to end the game.

• Virtual Chensanity tonight: 8 hits allowed, along with two walks, in just 6.1 innings. But the Diamondbacks left a zillion guys on base, had a guy thrown out at home, and grounded into two double plays. It was enough.
• The Royals had 11 hits, with -- and it seems like this happens regularly -- the bottom of the order doing much of the work. Another two hits for Escobar tonight, who I'm more confident in at the plate than Hosmer at this point, along with a randomly good night from Brayan Pena.
• Although the lead, though not the one I've divided into, was the homers of Butler and Moustakas.
• Quietly, Gordon is crashing again.
• What's the franchise record for strikeouts in a season? I feel like Francoeur could threaten it.
• I like the bullpen so much better with a functioning Holland around.
• Is Jose Mijares good? If Yost had to choose between using Collins and Mijares, who would he choose? Tough.
• Willie Bloomquist will be a Royal again, I know it.

Ian Kennedy (3.81 ERA) v. Bruce Chen (4.34 ERA)

Hosmer returns, will bat second. So we can have Hosmer in the lineup, with Butler at DH or we can have Gio DHing. Fire Yost.

Dere Mom & Dad,

I am sorry for not righting home earlier. We have had SO many games and we have been going on lots of trips. Did you pay for this month of games? Aprel was really fun. I was playing lots and even pitched in that game after I hit the home run. But then I think that coach thought I wasn't around any more.

My friend Jarod came back to the team. At first I was happy because he is real nice and we used to talk on the bench last season during games. But then coach made us race and the winner would get to play in center win this other guy was hurt. I have been trying to get faster but then when I did one of the pitchers saw me and said 'Run Forest"" so now I don't.

We have had some good games. A few days ago we had this big rally and the coach put me in the game. But then before could hit he took me out. But I did score a run, and that's all that matters. This one time I really wanted to play in a game so I walked to the bullpen were the pitchers are. But since I did it during the game the coach got mad and said it wasn't honoring the game and that I wasn't one. Did he see me pitch?

I thoght there was a rule that you had to play sometimes. But this other coach said that practicing counts. I really want to see the Avengers one of these days.

There are so many teams. I can't belief some of their names. I try to learn them all and think of new logos they should have. There is this one called the Oreos, but it is a bird? I am also prakticing my autograph. I would hate to be on a team that had ugly colors, because then you would have to wear them all day. Haha

Can I have a gun when I am older? I really want to learn how to hunt. Lots of guys on the team talk about it and it sounds fun. I now we can't hunt in the parking lot behind our apartment, but it sounds so fun.

I learned the name of another player today. Elcidez. I had heard him called something before, but I never understood it and we had never talked. But then we were getting onto the bus and he was looking for his keys and the coach made it stop and told everyone to look. So I was able to learn it then.

MITCH

The Royals are currently 9th in the American League in runs per game at 4.06.

Here are some of the offensive lowlights:

• Eric Hosmer: .174/.237/.319 (156 PAs)
• Jeff Francoeur: .248/.304/.350 (148 PAs)
• Humberto Quintero: .232/.280/.362 (75 PAs)
• Brayan Pena: .238/.262/.333 (65 PAs)

So basically, on any given night, a third of the lineup contributes nothing. And sure, one of those is catcher, so LOLS but what of 1B and RF? I've pretty much given up on any accountability regarding Francoeur, and have been asking that Hosmer be demoted for weeks now. Not sure what else there is to say.

Then we have only slightly better input from CF, SS & 2B. Alcides Escobar is one of the team's better hitters! Given that Moose, Gordon and Butler aren't really elite hitters either, it's a miracle the Royals are as high as 9th. Yay horrible new deadball era!

Trigger the hype explosions! Let the prospect lust flower! Declare today a personal day, ye subscribers to Baseball America! Scream loudly all those who love preciously spelled names.

Uber-super-never-been-better Royals prospect Wil Myers is headed to AAA. This is the second best day of our lives, to be topped only by his inimitable Major League Debut. For there is nothing better than a top prospect. They are, quite simply, all that matters.

Prior to last season BA rated Myers the #10 prospect in all of baseball. This season, he was #28, because apparently NUMBERS ARE DIFFERENT NOW AND #28 ACTUALLY MEANS #-100000000 BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HIS ORDINAL RANK SHOULD BE BECAUSE #1 ISN'T HIGH ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111111111111111111111

Myers has 13 homers in 35 games at AA this season.

Three weeks into the season, Royal secondbasemen -- Yuni and Getz in 50/50 split time -- had the third highest composite OPS of any 2B-team in the American League. With Yuni and Getz at 40 and 39 PAs respectively, their total line was a surprisingly good .333/.370/.464.

How have they done since?

As of this morning, May 16th, here's the "as a 2B" line for the Royals, with AL rank:

So there's been a fairly large drop. The days of being in the Cano-Kinsler neighborhood are over.

Since April 26th, Getz has hit just .231/.311/.333 which has been nearly all of the composite decline, since he's basically been the only 2B out there since Yuni's injury. In 5 PAs as a 2B Johnny G has also contributed, posting a .000/.200/.000 line.

But the larger issue here is Getz, who appears to have stopped stinging the ball quite so much. Although, don't expect a decrease in playing time - the Royals just don't care about results when filling out the lineup card. (Gordon Beckham, however, is still awful.)

This has been your Royal secondbasemen update.