Royals pitching outstanding

Solid outings from starters, great bridge work from middle relievers, and a fabulous closer pave a smooth road for the Royals.

Pitching has been the key to success for the Royals this year. Offensively the Royals have snuck by. Five of the Royals' seven victories have been won by one or two runs.

As of April 17th; only three teams have scored fewer runs than the Royals, and the Royals have the lowest team batting average in the American League (.245). Positively, the Royals have given up zero unearned runs this year. Which means the position players are playing good defense.

As of April 17th; the Royals have given up the fewest runs in the Major Leagues, Zack Greinke leads the majors with a 0.00 earned run average, Joakim Soria leads the AL with 4 saves, walked the second fewest batters in MLB and the fewest in the AL, and have the second most strikeouts in MLB and the most in the AL.

These numbers are made possible by the Royals pitching staff. Especially by: Gil Meche, Zack Greinke, Kyle Davies, Joakim Soria, Juan Cruz, Robinson Tejada, and Jamey Wright.

Zack Greinke has not let given up a run dating back to last year. He has a bright future and things look as if they are only going to get better for Zack. Known for his devistatingly slow curveball Greinke's fastball may be overlooked. His fastball is thrown in the low nineties. After seeing a curveball in the seventies his low nineties fastball will look as if it is comin in at around 96 miles per hour.

Joakim Soria is the Royals closer and he does just that. He closes the door on the opposing team and does not look back. Soria has been perfect this year in save oportunities. He has pitched four innings, given up three hits, one earned run, walked one batter, and stuck out seven. Last year Soria accumulated 42 saves and a 1.60 earned run average. Expectations will stay high for Soria this year. So far he has live up to them.

Gil Meche and Sidney Ponson are the veterans of the Royals pitching staff. Ponson made his major league debut in 1998 and Meche, his in 1999. Meche has started well, he is 1-0, has a 2.25 ERA, and has struck out 18 batters in 20 innings of work. Ponson has gotten off to a slow start.

The formula for the Royals is simple. The starter needs to pitch five solid innings. The bullpen can take it from there. The sixth and seventh innings can be eaten up by their middle relievers. The eighth can be handled by either Farnsworth or Cruz and the ninth by Soria. The Royals should view starters going past the seventh inning as a bonus. Not because they'll have a better chance to win, but so they can save the arms in their bullpen from overuse.

Estimating, if the Royals can score 3-4 runs per game they should have no trouble winning a significant amount of baseball games.