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Joe Posnanski finally giving up on the Royals!

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COuld someone cut and paste the article?

Here ya go Mike,

 

Greinke's all that's left for us to care about

 

JOE POSNANSKI

 

Call him Tory. That's T-O-R-Y, stands for “The Only Reason You…” and you can fill in the rest of the words. He is, for instance, The Only Reason You Would Even Think About Buying A Ticket This Year (Tory Wetabatty).

 

He's The Only Reason You Stopped Incinerating Every Season Ticket Absolutely (Tory Siesta).

 

He's The Only Reason You Just Overlook Erroneous Predictions Offered Surely in Newspapers And Never Scold Kind Inkers (Tory … oh, never mind).

 

He is, of course, Zack Greinke. He is Tory MSC.

 

The Only Reason You Might Still Care.

 

No, it wasn't supposed to be like this. Many of us boldly predicted the Royals would win the American League Central — which, admittedly, looks a bit rash or maybe completely nuts — but even non-believers thought the Royals might be competitive, they would definitely score runs, they would fight at least.

 

The reality, of course, is much, much worse than that. The fight is over. The fight never began, actually. The Royals have played all brands of lousy — they have pitched lousy, hit lousy, run lousy, fielded lousy and managed lousy. They have been so lousy, in fact, that Royals general manager Allard Baird (who admits he's done the lousiest job of them all) has decided it's time to close up the bar. He will soon trade Carlos Beltran and, if he can, just about everybody else.

 

You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.

 

All that's left in the wreckage is Greinke, the 20-year-old phenomenon who looks like he's 12 and has more pitches than Donald Trump. Greinke threw again on Sunday, this time against Tom Glavine, who will be in the Baseball Hall of Fame someday. Greinke vs. Glavine was the official, Major League Baseball-endorsed story of the day, veteran vs. the kid, teacher vs. student, old man and the prodigy. And for a while, it looked like a classic duel — that is, until the fourth inning when Greinke hung a slider to Mike Piazza and watched him tattoo the ball 422 feet to dead center field.

 

That's also when Carlos Beltran, apparently thinking he was playing at the old Polo Grounds with Willie Mays, ran full steam into the wall and hurt his knee.

 

Greinke did pitch his heart out. He was a bit rattled at times, could not quite work out of a couple of jams, could not match Glavine, but the kid, as has been written here a dozen times already, is special. “I was very impressed,” Glavine said, and Royals manager Tony Peña said “This kid is going to be a great, great, great pitcher,” the first time, I believe, Tony has put three consecutive “greats” in one sentence this week.

 

But even the wonder of watching Greinke cannot cover up the fiasco this team has become. With two men on in the second inning, Royals left fielder Byron Gettis watched three straight fastballs go by for strikes. Three straight. It's rare that you can honestly say, “I could have done that,” when watching big leaguers play, but I could have done that. Royals left fielders — and this is supposed to be where you put someone who can hit — are now hitting a robust .211. That isn't just the worst in the league; it's the worst by more than 50 points.

 

The Royals scraped just four hits off of Glavine, but Ken Harvey did hit a double, which was needed because the Royals are dead last in the American League in doubles. That's incredible to me. This team is supposed to be about line drives into the gap and then hustling and grabbing the extra base, right? How many times in the last couple of years have Royals officials said, “We are a doubles-hitting team?” Not exactly. At home, with the fences moved back, the Royals have been outdoubled 74-43.

 

Oh, there's bad news everywhere you look. The pitchers have no stuff. The Royals are on pace to become only the second American League team in a decade to strike out fewer than 800 batters in a season. The only other team to do that was Detroit, last season, and the Tigers lost 119 games.

 

The lineup has no speed. I'm no huge fan of the stolen base, but it tells a pretty clear story that the Royals are on pace to steal 73 bases this year, their lowest total ever, fewer than Willie Wilson alone in '79. This team is slower than furniture delivery. And then in Sign No. 238 that Tony Peña has run out of ideas, he talks about running more with this club. There's a thought. This is like trying to sleep better by drinking more coffee.

 

The team's approach — a favorite word of Allard Baird — has been awful. Brandon Berger, a longtime minor leaguer who inexplicably got another shot in the big leagues (and Sunday was mercifully released) gets called up and promptly forgets how many outs there are, overthrows cutoff men and jogs after fly balls. What? Darrell May and Brian Anderson, the Royals' two opening-day starting candidates, are allowing the league to hit a combined .345 against them. Excuse me? The Royals' leadoff hitters are hitting a combined .209. You guessed it: worst in the league.

 

It's hard to watch. Sunday, the Royals once again failed to put together a simple three-game winning streak — haven't had one of those in a more than two months. Allard Baird won't say the words out loud, but he knows: This season's over. The only goal now is to get something decent for Beltran, deal off some of the veterans, get younger and find a couple of starting pitchers somewhere. The Royals have been in this spot an awful lot in the last 10 years. As the late, great Ray Charles might sing: It's rebuilding time again.

 

At the very least, though, the Royals should have their No. 1 starter for the next six years. Zack Greinke is gifted. He's fun. And he's Tory Amec.

 

The Only Reason You Actually Made it to the End of this Column.

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