Robinson Tejeda, September, and greatness

Calendar be damned, what we're seeing from Robinson Tejeda should not be ignored. Oh, sure, September evaluations are notoriously unreliable, something we went over earlier this week.

But since joining the rotation, Tejeda has gone all Greinke on the league, done it against two first-place teams, and put together a stretch matched by only 12 pitchers -- many of them stars -- in the American League all season.

Tejeda threw 23 scoreless innings -- that included time in the bullpen -- before giving up a run in the Royals' blowout win over the Tigers last night.

In scout-speak, you hear a lot that Tejeda is trusting his nasty stuff a little more. His offspeed pitches have been more effective. Manager Trey Hillman says that moving to the rotation may be part of the reason for Tejeda's improved command, because he's able to repeat his delivery more consistently.

In the minds of Royals fans, of course, they're curious if this is the 2009 version of Kyle Davies, where a talented-but-unproven pitcher wows us during meaningless games only to fall back the next season.

Could be.

Nobody will know that until next summer.

But we do know that what Tejeda has done since joining the rotation is one of the best stretches by any pitcher all year: three starts, 16 1/3 innings, six hits, one earned run, eight walks, 19 strikeouts. His average Game Score is 67 which, just to give you an idea, was Greinke's Game Score when he gave up eight hits, one earned run, no walks and five strikeouts over eight innings against the Astros in June.

Anyway, with the help of my BFF Baseball-Reference we know there are only 12 pitchers in the American League who've given up one (or fewer) earned runs over three starts:

Felix Hernandez, who is sort of a poor-man's Zack Greinke this year, in the sense that he's having a terrific season but terrible run support.

Scott Feldman, a former 30th round pick who had a 5.29 ERA last year, but is now 16-4 with a 3.65 ERA.

Brett Anderson, a well-regarded rookie lefty for Oakland.

Josh Beckett, who has had his troubles this year but is still, last I checked, Josh Beckett*.

* He was also on one of the great elevator rides in Kauffman Stadium history. This story's been retold a few times, but this was after the terrible Royals (I think this was 2006) beat the Red Sox late, scoring the winning run off Papelbon. There was a young reporter on the elevator back up from the clubhouses, and he was clearly a big Royals fan.

"ENOUGH, LITTLE MAN!" he said, or something to that effect. "We get it!"

Zack Greinke, who actually has two such streaks. His first four starts totaled 29 innings, 19 hits, no earned runs, 36 strikeouts, and six walks. His last three starts total 24 innings, 13 hits, one earned run, three walks and 19 strikeouts. He's good.

John Lackey, who will be a very, very rich man in free agency this year, has given up one earned run in his last three starts, totaling 26 innings, 16 hits, three walks and 17 strikeouts.

Brett Cecil, the Blue Jays rookie, whose three-start streak hasn't yet been matched by his teammate Roy Halladay.

Jon Lester, who some scouts will tell you has the nastiest stuff in the league, but whose inclusion on this list may deserve an asterisk since his three starts were against the Orioles, Mariners and Royals.

A.J. Burnett, who has a 4.33 ERA and leads the league in walks (87) and wild pitches (17) while being paid $16.5 million.

Gil Meche, though this was before Trey Hillman and Bob McClure started monitoring him closer.

Kevin Millwood, who's finally having the type of season (3.94 ERA) the Rangers were hoping for when they signed him to that big contract four years ago.

Justin Verlander, who once paid $3,000 for a chocolate milk. Seriously. This was back in high school, and he didn't have any money. He offered a buddy 0.1 percent of his pro signing bonus for 50 cents on the spot. His friend wrote out a contract on a napkin, and Verlander signed it.

Well, a few years later and Verlander became the No. 2 overall pick of the Tigers, a signing bonus over $3 million. His friend shows up one day with the napkin, and Verlander paid.

"Was a chocolate milk worth $3,000?" he told Sports Illustrated. "I want to say yes. I was parched."

Anyway, so that's the list. You can knock Tejeda for doing it in September, but have to give him credit for doing it against first-place teams. The Tigers are struggling all of a sudden, but they faced him as a starter last night for the second time and still didn't do much.

Look at those names on this list, and you have to be encouraged. Most all of the others threw more innings than Tejeda has so far, but there aren't many duds to be picking from here.

There are legitimate reasons to doubt, reasons we've been over, but if Tejeda emerges as anything close to what he's shown the last three starts, it would at least give the Royals one non-Greinke-Billy-Soria thing to feel good about going into the offseason.