Keep Ya Head Up

You know it's hard out here for a Royals fan
When he tryin' to help his team to get one little win
For the Yankees got the money and the Rays got a plan
And a whole lot of columnists keep on talkin' shit

So, I'm trying to find something positive in the Royals sorrowful start to the season, and Estaban German putting up an OPS over 1.000 doesn't seem to cut it since most of his playing time is going to Tony Graffanino, anyway.

Instead, I'll point you to an awesome site called Fan Graphs, which has a cool Win Probablility feature that shows which team has the best chance to win throughout a game based on similar score/inning/runners on base scenarios from the last season.

The first thing you'll notice is that it's bad form to spot your opponents five runs in the first inning, but you probably knew that already. What I'm trying to focus on is this:

In Seven of the 12 games played so far this year, the Royals have had a better than 50% chance to win the game in the sixth inning or later.

Now, true to form, the Royals have found many ways to lose games late (wasn't our bullpen the only GOOD thing from last year?), but if you look at their season on a game by game basis, the team has actually been competitive.

I won't lie to you. Losing eight in a row hurts. But, it is too early in the season to get bogged down by some bad breaks. EVERYBODY is underperforming for the Royals right now. The playoffs were never a real possibility for this team, but I still think a run at .500 is possible.

Hang in there.