One of the things I like about this blog is hearing the opinions of Royals fans. The conversations on here, almost without exception, have been civil and intelligent. Thanks for that.

That said, I gotta admit surprise about what looks like a minor movement to trade Billy Butler.

Butler has his weaknesses, we all know that. He's still primarily "just" a DH (though when he's played in the field, he's yet to really kill the Royals), he's had some Emil moments on the bases, and, this year, hasn't been getting many extra base hits.

OK, wow, the national anthem thing sure got some response and is probably something we'll get back to in the future. But let's get to baseball today.

Mike Aviles sure had a bad night, and I'm not trying to pick on him, because he's been the most pleasant surprise of the season.

As Dutton wrote, he's earned a mulligan. That said, he misplayed two balls at shortstop and went 0-for-5 while stranding eight runners.

One former Royals player called the fans in Kansas City "disrespectful" and "classless."

Word gets around, too. Players talk to players, and one of the things they always ask each other is what the fans are like in each city.

The answer in Kansas City sometimes includes reference to the national anthem, which is almost always punctuated at the end by "...and the home of the CHIEFS!"

"Drives me crazy," one former player says.

We're about to find out a lot about the Royals.

They've been amazingly streaky the six weeks or so, good and bad, losing 12 in a row and 19 of 23, then winning six in a row and 11 of 12. It's beyond streaky. It's schizophrenia.

My guess is they're a lot closer to the team they'd be if you took away the 12-game streak and the 11-of-12 run, a win percentage of .448 which would work out to 73 wins.

So we're looking at some of Dayton Moore's biggest moves in his two-plus years as general manager, and here's part 1.

I'm probably forgetting a move or two somewhere, but these are the big ones. Maybe this latest surge out of last place has slowly changed some minds, but I get the feeling that the rebuilding of this franchise isn't happening fast enough for some fans.

Would've gotten to this the other day, after Jorge De La Rosa's start at Kauffman Stadium Tuesday if not for Ramon Ramirez's new-found control problems and the scary moment with the maple bat and home plate umpire.

But we have time today, with De La Rosa's start still fresh in the memory. He was incredibly De La Rosa on Tuesday, dominating the first few innings before going wild and inconsistent for a couple innings, the damage enough to cancel out the good start and leave him with the loss.

Lots to get to, but it has to start with Ramon Ramirez, right?

Ramirez looked to be in good control last night until Rockies catcher Yorvit Torrealba -- Ramriez's old battery mate -- came to the plate. Two of Ramirez's first three pitches went well behind Torrealba.

Tracy Ringolsby of the Rocky Mountain News writes that several Rockies players said Ramirez made a pregame declaration that he would hit Torrealba.

Jose Guillen's in the news again, calling his team "horse (bleep)," for certain baserunning mistakes and what he sees as a tendency to give up leads late.

This is somewhat the same thing he said in Sunday's paper.

When I talked to Guillen, he was especially upset about the late leads, and this was on Saturday, a day after they gave it up on Friday night, so the frustration was no doubt amplified.

Reasonable people can differ about whether the Royals are going to make it.

Dayton Moore and his people are sharp, but as he says, they're not baseball geniuses, not smarter than the other 29 front offices trying to put together winning teams.

Maybe Billy Butler develops his power and wins a batting title, maybe Alex Gordon breaks Steve Balboni's franchise single season home run record, maybe Eric Hosmer breaks Gordon's record.

This weekend's series with the Giants is a bit of the 2006 draft revisited, when Luke Hochevar starts tonight for the Royals and Tim Lincecum goes Sunday for the Giants.

You might remember the 2006 draft as the one where the Royals took Hochevar first overall, ahead of, among other players, Lincecum.

The conventional wisdom at the time was that Lincecum had the best raw stuff but was a prime candidate for arm trouble because of his small frame (5-foot-11, 160 pounds) and violent delivery.

Just for fun --- oh, heck, who am I? Maybe this isn't fun at all --- you might be interested to know that the Royals, at their 2008 pace, would win 115 games playing in the National League.

That includes 108 wins in NL games (based on their .750 win percentage) and seven in interleague against the AL.

They would score 858 runs (essentially what the Rockies did last year) and give up around 550 (more than 100 fewer than the Padres, who were stingiest in the league last year).

They list Mike Aviles at 5-9 and 195 pounds and up close, he looks as squatty as you'd expect from those numbers.

That is to say, he looks nothing like a big league shortstop.

A big league catcher, sure. But shortstop? Come on.

Aviles says his natural position is shortstop, though he played enough second base and third base in the minor leagues that he feels equally comfortable either place.

The price of C.C. Sabathia just went up. The Yankees need a frontline starting pitcher, need it bad, need it worse now than they did this past offseason when they wouldn't deal for Johan Santana.

Santana seems the perfect candidate, a big-time, Cy Young Award-caliber guy who wouldn't mind pitching in New York.

All this, of course, stems from Chien-Ming Wang's injury he suffered the other day running the bases in an interleague game. The Yankees thought Wang would be their frontline guy.

So maybe you've forgotten about The First Very Official Ball Star Over-Under Challenge, but now seems like as good a time as any to check in on the progress there.

Even if you're not among the 50 or 60 entrants vying for delicious wings from the Peanut and a guest post here at Ball Star, it's interesting to see how the categories are shaping up.

The Tigers are making a run, winning five of their last six, all against the Indians and White Sox, and that's just one more unexpected happening in the AL Central.

With Dontrelle Willis sent all the way down to Class A --- perhaps to get him away from reporters --- and the bullpen still in disarray and Justin Verlander struggling I was ready to watch the Tigers' funeral.