So the Royals lost again last night, lost because another starting pitcher had another spectacular outing against them.

For what it's worth, I think Daniel Cabrera last night would've shut down a lot of offenses, but it seems like a lot of starting pitchers have those kinds of outings against the Royals, doesn't it?

Anyway, before you start thinking I know what I'm talking about, hear me out. One thing I thought I was noticing was a huge difference in pitch counts.

Dan Connelly is the talented national baseball writer for The Baltimore Sun, and I promise I'd be saying that even if he wasn't nice enough to do the latest Ball Star View From the Other Side.

A former altar boy -- I wouldn't make that up -- he's been a journalist 17 years, the last eight covering the Orioles and baseball.

One year ago this week, Roger Clemens created a racous standing ovation at Yankee Stadium and then the requisite national stir when he announced he was coming out of retirement. Again.

He was the strutting savior to sports' most famous franchise, there to save the day while working just half the year.

Television analysts cooed about his presence. Newspaper columnists pounded their keyboards, the letters s-e-v-e-n-C-y-Y-o-u-n-g-A-w-a-r-d-s getting a special workout. Radio talk shows lit up about what this would mean in the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry, which, I think we'd all agree, is only slightly more important than world peace.

The Royals are 14-17 (that .452 win percentage translates to 73 wins, but their runs scored and against translates to a 12-19 pythag record, second worst in the AL).

You can see the beginning of a contending team here: strong starting pitching and back of the bullpen, solid defensively for the most part with some young hitters you hope will develop).

But when Dayton Moore got here, I recall him mentioning three keys to success -- and pardon me if I mess up the order -- but he talked about starting pitching, starting pitching, and also starting pitching.

Probably nothing will ever beat Gus Frerotte, the quarterback who once gave himself a concussion when he celebrated a touchdown by banging his head against a cement wall.

Frerotte will forever be the platinum standard for stupid injuries, the go-to butt of the joke when you need to make of someone for doing something dumb.

John Bale, as you've no doubt heard by now, is having his return from the DL delayed after he punched the door at his hotel room the other night.

Meanwhile, away from the Bissinger-v-Leitch hubbub, the Royals managed one run in eight innings against Sir Sidney Ponson, losing the three-game series to the terrible Rangers.

Yuck.

We're a month in, we've already seen the good Royals (6-2 start that included a sweep in Detroit and two of three against the Yankees) and the bad Royals (seven-game losing streak, plus anytime they're hitting) so I think we've had enough time to take something of a big-picture, from-30,000-feet kind of view.

In the wake of the Costas townhall, (too?) much has been written already about blogs vs. mainstream media, so I'm going against my better judgment here and chiming in.

I am an obvious homer for newspapers. We got four delivered to our house when I was a kid. The day I got my drivers license, I put in my first day of work at a newspaper.

After a year or so, they even started paying me, and except for mowing lawns and one dreadful summer at Walgreen's, every dollar I've ever made (outside a casino) has come from being a journalist. I'm approaching 30, so that's 14 years working at newspapers, which, damn, when it's put like that is almost half my life.

(OK, we'll probably be back to the longer posts soon enough. But just had a quick thought and some links for the afternoon.)

Don't know how many of you saw the Bob Costas town-hall meeting thing last night on HBO, but it's interesting to me for obvious reasons.

I'm more curious in what you guys think, rather than spouting out a bunch of my thoughts. I'll only say that I continue to believe very strongly that there will always be a place for news-gatherers (newspapers), though that place is obviously in transition.

(NOTE: I've been told that shorter posts are the way to go. I struggle with that at times, and it's not just on the blog but in the paper too --- ask my editors. But I'm gonna try to cut the length down a little, and here's my first attempt.)

The seven-game losing streak and painful offensive struggles are clear reminders of how far the Royals still have to go.

This three-game series against the Rangers is a reminder of how far they've come.

Mark Teahen once rocked a Big Black Security t-shirt to the Royals clubhouse, so you know he's OK with me.

He said his favorite episode is the one where they break the Guinness World Records, and I'll never understand why the Guinness guy said Big Black would be disqualified from the powdered donuts record if he licked his lips.

No Royals game today. They're preparing to start a series in Texas tomorrow against the Rangers, the only team in the American League with fewer wins than Kansas City. How's that sentence strike you?

There's a lot of talk about pitching and defense, pitching and defense, and rightfully so. A team like the Royals (a team that can't hit very well) needs to "pitch it and catch it" near flawlessly to have a chance.

Did you know the Royals play in Toronto on May 25, which also happens to be (at least at the moment) the Blue Jays' Frank Thomas Bobblehead Night promotion?

* Sixth grader Daniel Naroditsky, the 12-and-under world chess champion, played Oakland relievers Andrew Brown and Huston Street simultaneously and won a total of 10 times in less than 30 minutes.

* Remember the Kyle Kendrick prank? This one's less sophisticated, but just as effective. (stay to the 1:30 mark, apparently Putz is the Mariners' resident king of the pie prank.)

Overheard at Kauffman Stadium last night: "Maybe the Royals could boost their offense by signing whoever's leading the Japanese league in home runs. Oh, wait a second. That's Craig Brazell."

Overheard at Kauffman Stadium last night, part 2 (just before the start of the first game, when there were several people in the stands): "Geez, it looks like there was a bomb threat."

Read in my e-mail inbox this morning: "I thought we were supposed to be better? This is as bad as 2004."

There's that car and truck out in left field, deep, way deep, a white and blue target, just waiting for someone to muscle up on a fat pitch and send the Kauffman Stadium crowd into hysterics.

Officially, there is no prize for hitting either vehicle. This is not a hit-it-here promotion where the folks at Dodge hand over a set of keys if a batter embarasses a pitcher by hammering one all the way to where the JumboTron used to be.

Sorry about the delay in getting something up here today. The official Ball Star transportation died today, so I've been busy with that. The good news is we just put a bunch of money in that car for new tires and new brakes, so it's great timing.

Anyway, the Jared Allen news and NFL draft seems to be dominating sports talk around town this week. This is a debate I often find myself in with people around town, but I see this as just another piece of evidence that Kansas City is very much a football town now.