Kansas City Royals

Kansas City Royals pitcher Zack Greinke used a historic April to propel him to the American League Cy Young award last year. I don’t think anyone expected Greinke to repeat his April performance this year.

On April 2, we saw one of the Kansas City Royals' final bullpen spots get handed out to a young pitcher who has little service time.

In yet another head-scratching move, Dayton Moore & Co. have decided that Mike Aviles was the 25-man roster casualty to make room for Gil Meche, who was activated from the disabled list for his start on Sunday.

Never mind that the optioning of a position player to activate a pitcher means the Royals are now carrying 13 pitchers on the major league roster.

Never mind that Kyle Farnsworth could easily be put on the DL as he is actually injured.

Caption: KC RF Rick Ankiel was left holding just his bat handle after his eighth inning showdown with Sox fireballer Daniel Bard. Unfortunately, Ankiel flared a base hit into left-center field on this swing to deliver the game-tying and game-winning runs in KC's 4-3 come-from-behind win over the Red Sox.

We're four games in, and it would seem that Trey Hillman feels that both Mike Aviles and Mitch Maier haven't sat enough to fully cool off from their torrid spring.

Both men all but forced their way into their spots on the 25-man roster entering Spring Training.

In 21 games and 57 plate appearances, Aviles hit .471/.517/.725 with one-third of his hits going for extra bases (three doubles and five triples).

To date, Zack Greinke's record is 0-0 and Kyle Farnsworth's is 1-0. 

Things aren't always as they seem, though. Both of these pitchers took very different routes to get to this point.

Zack Greinke, while not dominant, cruised through six innings on Opening Day, giving up 6 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K. Greinke turned a winnable game and a 4-2 lead over to the bullpen in the top of the seventh.  The result: The Royals trailed by the bottom of the seventh.

The first thing that comes to mind when reflecting back upon this week's opening day debacle in Kansas City is that there may not be a time more apropos than now to cite one of my favorite movie quotes.

If you’re a sports fan and you’ve been to Kansas City for a Royals or Chiefs game, you know that Kansas City fans know how to throw a party.

This is never more apparent than at the beginning of the season when expectations are abound and disappointment has yet to infest public sentiment.

Once again, there’s not a heckuva lot to like about what is going on in Kansas City.

The Royals' front office appears to be completely lacking in terms of a consistent philosophy on how it wants to build the ball club.

GM Dayton Moore acquired a couple of decent young players in the deal that sent Mark Teahan to Chicago—but otherwise, his moves appear to be ill-conceived and devoid of direction.

When it comes to fantasy baseball, there are certain teams—like the Yankees and Red Sox—where virtually everyone but the batboy will get selected in your draft. 

Fantasy owners build their teams around names like Alex Rodriguez, CC Sabathia, Albert Pujols, Jonathan Papelbon, etc.

They don't, however, build their teams around guys like Alex Gordon and Yuniesky Betancourt.