Perspective and Pena

Before we get to baseball stuff, it hit me this week that we -- all of us, sports fans -- are getting closer and closer all the time to putting sports in proper perspective.

Maybe this is like the old Chris Rock line about getting credit for what you're supposed to do, but Royals manager Trey Hillman missed a third consecutive game yesterday to be with his family following the death of his father-in-law, and I haven't read or heard a single thing saying Trey should've stayed with the team.

I hope that's because we all see that Trey is where he should be, with his family during a difficult time, and this is all coming to mind because it hasn't always been like this.

The example that comes to mind first is back in the 1990s, when an Oilers offensive lineman named David Williams was suspended and clipped more than $100,000 for skipping a game to be with his wife for the birth of their first child.

The team was pissed, with an assistant coach even saying, "This is like World War II, when guys were going to war and something would come up but they had to go...David just went blank. He let the guys down, and he let hundreds of thousands of fans down."

Williams came back the following week with pictures and cigars for his teammates, saying he had no regrets.

This is an imperfect analogy for a few reasons, but hopefully you can connect the dots and see what I'm trying to say here.

Since nobody's made an issue of this, it probably doesn't need to be said, but here goes anyway:

Good for Trey for being with his family, good for the Royals' staff for facilitating it, and goof for the rest of us for not making a big deal of it.

OK, now for baseball stuff, and buried under another loss yesterday was Brayan Pena starting at catcher. Here's hoping we see more of it.

That was only Pena's third start at catcher in 15 games, which is really hard to understand when the Royals are playing out a string of otherwise meaningless games.

They say they want to get a better look at Pena to see what they have, to see where he fits in their future, but they're sure making it hard on themselves by not playing him.

If that means they've already made their decision, then fine, but this is a catcher hitting .292/.331/.492 scheduled to make close to the league minimum next year, which should at least warrant an extended look from a team in need of catchers and in need of offense.

Pena has some issues defensively, with coaches often talking about some mechanical flaws that could expose themselves in the future. For what it's worth, the opposition is hitting .288/.353/.481 in Pena's 24 games catching, which is slightly worse than the overall numbers with John Buck catching.

Then again, we could be looking at a small sample size, or just a product of who he's caught -- Zack Greinke and Gil Meche were very effective in three starts throwing to Pena, and Jack Soria* has gone nine-up-nine-down throwing to Pena.

* Nope. Still doesn't feel right.

Amateur observation warning: it seems like the biggest questions about Pena as a catcher revolve around how he would hold up -- both offensively and defensively -- playing every day. And it seems like the Royals have a perfect opportunity here to try that out, an opportunity that goes smaller every day.

I understand they're trying to win games, that should always be the goal of a big league team, even one that's been so far out of the playoff hunt.

But unless the Royals are convinced -- not concerned, but CONVINCED -- that Pena is an obstacle in them winning games, it sure would be nice to see how it plays out.