The Royals are 6-16 on the road this year. That's .273. That's easily the worst in the majors. Second worst is Washington's .361. Get used to it. There's a lot of road ahead for the Royals.

Amazingly, the Royals pass the halfway point in their home schedule today. That's right, on this early June afternoon our hometown blues play their 41st game at the K. Why? I dunno. What's it mean? It means either the Rs start figuring out how to win on the road, or an overall number one draft pick a year from now could be more within our grasp than most people realize.

After today's game, 99 will remain for Ned's Nonperformers. That breaks down to 40 home and 59 road. Our current winning percentages of .500 and .273 would lead to a 62-99 overall record with today's 50-50 home game being the determining factor as to whether the Royals lose 100! (May be worth noting here my disagreement with the recent RR reader's poll prediction of 72-73 wins, or am I failing to factor in the coming Moustakas Effect).

Needless to say, the strangely front-loaded home schedule puts Dayton's Downtrodden ahead in the majors in the all-important Most-Home-Games-Before-Hurricane-Season category. The question is, will the Royals be washed ashore the triple-digit banks of loserdom, or will they weather the travails of travel and find a happy ending to this Prelude to Greatness season?

TPJ has now pitched a game at Burlington without getting a loss! His line is now 3 games, 1 start (!?), 2 losses, 4.2 innings, 6h, 5r, 4er, 1hr, 4bb, 4k, 1hbp, 1wp.

IMO the transition of Pena is the ultimate proof that this crazy train has indeed gone off the rails. He delivers 1 inning of flinging the ball (to batters who were only trying to not get plunked) with an untenable delivery in the last inning of a blowout game and a year later the R's decide, "Well, he can't hit, ergo he must be a pitcher!" Apparently we have about 20 pitchers in the clubhouse. Rock on.

In case you hadn't noticed, this is becoming a heated race for the bottom. The Nats have gone 13-17 over their last 30 games, picking up a full 5 games on the Royals in that span. Reread if necessary. The Royals are now in sight of Dead Last, six-and-a-half ahead of the Nats in the standings. You can root for such an outcome or not, depending on your personal ethos, but Dead Last is doable. Do not even dare to doubt this.

Draft standing could mean several things at the conclusion to this season, depending on whether Stephen Strasburg signs before the August 17 deadline, whether (if he hasn't signed) he waives his right to not be drafted next year again by the Nats, and whether Bryce Harper gains draft eligibility. Of course to ensure KC gets a shot at one of these "once-in-a-lifetime" prospects, the Boys in Blue need to finish behind the entire field (I'm watching you, Cincinnati). Signing and developing the players are further challenges, but at some point you just gotta believe in something, and I believe that either one would make the Royals a better team.

So cheer the hometeam on to victory or pray for defeat, either way the long-term prospects of the club may be very much at stake when the final standings are decided.

What if GMDM has made a move so brilliant that no one else has been capable of recognizing it? He sees a devastating team weakness and springs to the rescue using metrics so advanced that to you and me they might as well be hieroglyphics stashed in one of those Chinese wooden boxes that slide open kind of like a puzzle - those things can be really tricky.

Anyway, the much-maligned UselesS-key trade may be more than meets the uniformed eye. Consider his attributes:

Can't hit: check

Scouts overrate his defense: check

Can't get on base: check

Tantalizes the easily fooled with occasional gap power: check

(Now the important stuff)

Fear? none that I have seen

Live arm? you betcha

Multiple throwing angles? oh yeah

Can spin the ball? probably, I mean my little sister can, so...

The future is ours to behold. TPJ and UniEzzKey rebuilding our tattered bullpen, holding games for Jack to terminate; Our foes withering before us like so many dried-up withering things (not great at analogies). Around the time the All-Star Game comes to the K, this could be our hope, our salvation, our destiny. This must be Dayton's vision - I mean, who could have thought that guy could actually be a shortstop?

The famous "Two Sabremetricians" line from GMDM has taken on a life of its own, so I wanted to contribute some sleuthwork from a Royals insider who is also a good friend. First, if you're reading this you have probably also read speculative namings of the mysterious Royals sabremetricians. Those guesses are wrong. In fact, the Two Wizards aren't really on the staff, but instead are part-time outside consultants, I was told. Who are they? That's what I wanted to know too. "I can't tell you, but they are both highly regarded," was what I got for an answer. I pressed my source: "I can't divulge their names," I was told before being reminded of how really really well regarded they are, leading me to wonder why so much secrecy, but there you have it.

I know and appreciate that many of you on this site are wary of unnamed sources (you would get a kick out of this one) but there's really no way I can reveal that without risking peoples' jobs (Secrecy is Priority #1 at Glass Industries!)  Ultimately the questions of who are The Two and who is being protected by keeping their names secret hardly even beg for answers. After all, does any of that matter when no one in the front office is listening to them anyway?

B-Dutt shared this Hillman wisdom today after noting that Guillen and Jacobs placed 138th and 142nd among MLB's 147 qualified batters in OBP last season, and that they may end up batting 4-5 for this year's Royals:

“You always want to try to reduce strikeouts and increase walks,” Hillman said. "It doesn’t matter, really, if you have a history of being an OBP guy or not. Guillen had a couple of streaks last year when he was unloading on really good pitches. Hopefully, we can get Jake to do the same thing.”  [KCStar]

So OBP no longer matters if you have a couple hot streaks in a season, and player histories are no longer referenced when looking ahead. Which also explains why Trey further reveals he is penciling in Big Mike against all pitchers this year, despite pesky historical splits that have lesser minds contemplating the "P" word.

Is this further evidence that OBP is still being treated like poison sumac at the K, or are we witness to the birth of an advanced new philosophy that will guide our heroes to the long-forgotten shores of glory?