The streak is over. The American League completely ignored the 7-9 record and 1.62 WHIP of Cleveland's Aaron Laffey and named Kansas City's Zack Greinke as their 2009 Cy Young Award winner. With Greinke's accomplishment comes the realization that the Indians have no choice but to keep all of their pitchers next season and that my Tribe bobblehead collection is about to get fifteen more Grady Sizemores in occupational clothing.
Wednesday night's loss to the White Sox didn't help the Royals' playoff chances one bit. It was a sobering night for Royals fans, who now have to come to terms with the possibility that their team might not be playing baseball late into October.
In a ridiculous but true story we couldn't possibly make up, Kansas City Royals relief pitcher Kyle Farnsworth continued his 2009 Farewell to the Major Leagues Tour today by having to get four stitches in his left index finger after being bitten by one of his dogs. According to the report, he was bitten while trying to break up a fight between the canines, but anybody who has ever read a Dugout knows that is totally NOT what he was doing, and chances are it was something even more absurd that what you are about to read.
So far, The Dugout has established three relatively static "straight man" characters on the Royals: pitchers Zack Greinke, Brian Bannister, and Joakim Soria. This season, of course, they're joined by perennial Dugout man-children Kyle Farnsworth and Sidney Ponson. So we can say that the Royals have a Full House, Aces full of Jokers, and shovel this terrible poker-centric joke on top of the massive pile of poker-centric jokes that the Royals have had to suffer over the years.
As longtime readers of The Dugout are aware, the Royals are one of our pet franchises. We tend to ignore teams like the Astros, mostly because we're too busy writing story arcs about an obscure Royals utility infielder possessing superhuman abilities, or the Royals' owner assuming the role of a contemporary Satan, or the Royals' manager living out of a grocery cart.
Prerequisite: BlackDraft™ Part 1
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