Breaking 100: Winding Down

The season is quickly winding down. The Royals still have a chance to avoid 100 losses, but must play .500 ball to do so.

The encouraging thing is that the Royals are actually playing pretty well lately. And there are some young players who fans can look forward to seeing in the next year or two.

Mark Teahen’s emergence as an All-Star caliber hitter has been a refreshing surprise. Teahen’s season is over, as he is having surgery on his shoulder today. The injury has bothered him all season, and he decided to have the surgery now to ensure he will be ready when Spring Training starts. (see Dan Fox’s article on Teahen at Baseball Prospectus.)

Ryan Shealy is looking like he can fill the first base spot well. With Alex Gordon and Billy Butler knocking on the door, next year’s lineup should be light years ahead of this year’s.

Perhaps next season’s line up will look something like this:
• 1B Shealy
• 2B Grudz
• SS Berroa (or somebody new?)
• 3B Gordon
• LF Teahen (he’s athletic enough to move to the outfield)
• CF DeJesus (Sorry Gathright, but you’ve disappointed here)
• RF Sanders (or somebody new?)
• DH Sweeney/Butler

The only question is still pitching. Dayton Moore seems to be trying to address pitching based on the moves he’s made since taking over in June.

So as football gets started (my son’s team, the Jets, play their first game tomorrow), we Royals fans can root the team on to 11 wins and look forward to a much better season in 2007.

As Cubs fans always say, “there’s always next year.”

Let’s go get ‘em.