The Royals are currently 1 game under .500 after being swept by the New
Orleans Vampires. The first place Edmonton Sled Dogs have already built
up a 5 1/2 game over the Royals. Manager Gary Carter couldn't be
happier.
The worse the Royals do at the beginning of the season, the more they
push themselves to excel at the end of the season. After 4 seasons in
the bigs, the Royals have learned one thing: lose big in the spring, win
big in the fall. Their worst start to the season was in 2000, the same
season that the Royals managed a tie for first place in the division.
But a win is a win is a win, whether it's in April or in September.
Whatever the case may be, the Royals certainly aren't the Boys of
Summer... they're the Men of Fall.
Rusty Greer is notorious for getting off to slow starts. The Royal's
all-time batting leader has a .348 career batting average during the
regular season, but it drops to .243 in the month of April. In career
batting average in August is .392.
Through the month of April, here's the status report.
Pleasant Surprises
Spider Monahan: So what if he has a .222 batting average. Scoring runs
is what counts, and so far he leads the club in RBIs (21) and home runs
(8). He is on pace for 126 RBIs.
Art Maupin: To the surprise of everyone, this young catcher is leading
the team in average (.356).
Rudy Ibanez: Drafted with the Royals' second pick in the 2001 Free Agent
Draft, it was initially an insurance pick and nothing more. He had
difficulty in spring training but still made the team being the only
southpaw in the bullpen. So far this season, he has impressed--through
14 innings of work he has a 1.93 ERA and has only walked one batter.
Early Dissapointments
Trevor Hoffman: The league's all-time save leader does not have a save
so far this season. Only Bill Simas has a worse ERA than Hoffman. He has
a 1-3 record. Not off to a grea tstart.
Brady Anderson: Anderson was so consisent last year, it was almost
assumed that he would continue his great hitting. Not so. Anderson was
hot in the first half of April, but in the past two weeks he has been in
a horrendous slump. His batting average is now at .245, he has only 9
RBIs and only 1 stolen base.
