I was listening to the “Baseball Show” (I think its called) during Petro’s show at lunch today.  For those not familiar, it’s a weekly, sort of “State of the Royals” show, normally with Jeff Montgomery, but today Mike Macfarlane sat in.  As sort of a gage to see how far the major league club has come since DMGM took over, they went through position by position and compared 2006  vs. 2009.  it was sort of comical that Mac was confused by the fact that some players from ’06 are still on the team, but in different positions:

Petro:  3rd base, 2006 Teahen v. 2009 Gordon

Mac: but Teahen is still on the team???

Petro: yes, but he is not the starting 3rd baseman…

Repeat for DeJesus in LF.  Buck as back-up catcher, etc.

Anyway...

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I recall much discussion on this site last year and in the off season regarding players the Royals were rumored to be chasing, were chasing, were on the trading block and whom other teams coveted.  As well as the players many on this site advocated pursuing.  I’ve been thinking that it would be interesting to see how some of the players involved in the discussion were performing this year.

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Well it should, because it is eerily similar to KC's first game in Oakland Last year.  It was a little earlier in the year, but here was the situation on April 18th, 2008:

The Royals came into Oakland still feeling pretty good about themselves after starting the year 9-7.  They sent Brian Bannister to the hill with his spotless 3-0 record and microscopic 0.86 ERA to face an Oakland offense that was struggling to say the least.  They had lost 4 of their previous 5 games while scoring a total of 7 runs. 

Needless to say the Royals lost that game in similar fashion to last night, or at least a similar score (13-2).  Bannister actually held it together for a while and the Royals led 2-1 going into the bottom of the fifth, when he was touched for 4, effectively ending the game for the Royals and their dormant offense.  It was the two headed godzilla of Yashuiko Yabuta and Hideo Nomo that really opened the flood gates by giving up 8 runs as they combined to pitch the eighth inning. 

The A's bats were officially alive again and they swept the Royals by a combined score of 26-8 in three games.  This firmly entrenched the Royals in one of their patented losing streaks as they were swept again the next series, this time at home at the hands of the Indians...combined score 26-7.  ouch!!

Here's hoping the similarities between last year and this end now.