Accountability

Maybe you remember the last time the Royals beat the Indians. Interesting game then, too.

Down three to start the ninth, Mike Jacobs and Mark Teahen hit back-to-back homers, Miguel Olivo drew a walk (!), David DeJesus had an RBI triple, Willie Bloomquist a sac fly, and, just like that, the Royals had one of their best wins in years.

That was the Royals' third win in four tries after losing six in a row, and all those good feelings stormed back through Kauffman Stadium and, really, Kansas City.

You may have noticed that the Royals have four wins in the 22 days since.

So while it'd be nice to say, Hey, look at that, Meche* pitched his best game of the year, lineup banged out nine runs, this is great, the Royals are back, well, that thinking would ignore a lot of facts.

* That's Meche-y if you're Buddy Bell.

But because the Royals won last night, and because it's another Happy Greinke Day, I will point out one really nice thing about this team that may be going overlooked a bit.

They are accountable.

At the very least -- and maybe that's all it is -- it's nice for fans to hear. These are not your older brother's Royals. When they're horsebleep, they'll say they're horsebleep.

Gil Meche after getting hit hard by the Tigers on May 25: "My back feels fine. No excuses. It's just a matter of pitching, and that's something I'm not doing right now."

Zack Greinke on his terrible start last week in Toronto: "Mainly a case of just me being stupid again...That was the hardest I've been hit since the game (in 2005) when I gave up 11 runs in Arizona...Even the outs were hit hard. Really, it didn't feel normal out there. You just don't see people get hit that hard. Hardly ever. Even the worst pitchers in baseball. Even if you are (tipping your pitches), you should be able to do better than I did in that last game."

Billy Butler on his key error in the loss Tuesday night: "You can pretty much chalk this one up on me. That's pretty much all there is to it. You've got to make those plays."

Brian Bannister on his pitching in that game: "The sixth inning was my fault. I had my good stuff working, and I really needed to punch out a guy in that inning. I let them make contact and put some pressure on us. I just need to step up and make bigger pitches."

Jose Guillen after being swept by the White Sox a few weeks ago: "We just gotta make some adjustments and play like real big league players. That's why we get paid a lot of money. Especially myself. I've got to start producing and hitting because I don't think I've been getting the job done."

And so on.

Now, a couple obvious points:

1) Being accountable is what you expect from professional, grown-up, adult athletes*, and

2) Royals fans would probably trade this team for one that made excuses 40 percent of the time if it won the other 60 percent.

* If Chris Rock was here, he might say, what do you want, a cookie?

But, again, at the VERY least, this is not a team whistling through the graveyard. Publicly, at least, there hasn't been any major tantrums or R-rated rants or anything like that that would likely be blown out of proportion as a buck-stops-here moment.

Fans write in and call in almost every day wanting to hear something like that, but if you listen to what these guys are saying, it's quite obvious that losing doesn't sit well with them.

Whether that helps win games is whole different argument.