Rays, dreams, basements, and drafts
I have the weirdest dreams sometimes. This morning, I had one in which I heard a rumor that Royals pitcher Gil Meche was developing a heroin problem. I decided that I was the person who had to deal with this alleged problem, only I didn’t know how to get ahold of Meche to confront him about his drug use. I feverishly hunted for a phone number, an address, anything, but all I could find was more online gossip about him.
Yeah, he’s not a heroin addict. What the heck, subconscious?
Anyway, back in real life, the Royals have fallen back into last in the AL Central after a loss against Tampa Bay last night. Last night was a night of a lot of movement for the East, as Joba Chamberlain pitched a heck of a game against the Red Sox to give New York their 7th straight win, and help knock Boston out of the tie for first (with Tampa Bay). And now New York is only 3 games out of first place.
I was really hoping the Royals would make a good showing against the Rays to help Boston stay on top of the East, because I kind of like the Red Sox. They’d be my “other team” if I was able to really love more than one team in the league.
That said, I really like what the Rays have been doing this year. I’m not surprised at how many games they’ve won (they’re 60-42), because it’s always easy to see that they draft well. I’ve argued about this with one of my brothers - he has no admiration for the Rays’ turnaround because - and I’m paraphrasing here - any team could turn around in a hurry if they had the top draft choice every year. My problem with that is that the Royals have been similarly sucky all these years, so they’ve also had the first or second pick of the draft every year. And they certainly aren’t turning around in any kind of hurry.
I’m far from losing patience or giving up on my team. I understand that the previous front office regime did a TON of damage to the minor league system, and that takes a long time to fix, and a lot more pieces are in place for an improved team than there were last year or the year before. I’m just frustrated that we haven’t been able to do in the draft what Tampa Bay has done, because we’ve focused too much on whether we’d be able to sign our draft picks, not whether they were the best guys for our team. That kind of attitude puts the organization on track for a “one step forward, two steps back” phase, but we’re finally climbing out of it. It’s just too bad the Rays climbed faster.