Futility

With tonight's 3-1 loss to the Blue Jays the Royals fall to 8-25. Winning at a .242 clip will buy them 123 losses, easily surpassing last year's record 104 loss season. With that kind of frustration it's not hard to see why Tony Pena resigned after the game - a move many Royals fans have been calling for since the first week of the season.

It's also not hard to see how Zack Greinke is 0-4 with his 3.38 ERA given that the Royals have scored all of 116 runs in those 33 games, just 3.52 per game. One note of encouragement regarding Greinke is that he's only given up three homeruns in 40 innings this season. Long balls were his achilles heel last season. His control remains good (only 8 walks) although his strikeout rate is somewhat concerning at 4.72.

What's most interesting, however, is that Mike Sweeney with his homerun tonight for the Royals only run has driven in 29 of the 116, fully 25%. Driving in a quarter of your team's runs in a full season has never been accomplished. Those who've come closest since 1900 are:

                 RBI   Pct
Nate Colbert 1972 SDN 111 22.7%
Wally Berger 1935 BSN 130 22.6%
Ernie Banks  1959 CHN 143 21.2%
Sammy Sosa   2001 CHN 160 20.6%
Jim Gentile  1961 BAL 141 20.4%
Bill Buckner 1981 CHN  75 20.2%
Bill Nichols 1943 CHN 128 20.2%
Frank Howard 1968 WAS 106 20.2%
Babe Ruth    1919 BOS 114 20.2%
Frank Howard 1970 WAS 126 20.1%