As fantasy owners of Royals starting pitcher Zack Greinke, Tommy and I have taken extra interest in the sorry tale that is the Kansas City Royal's 2005 season, specifically, how their impotent bats have failed miserably in their attempts to give the poor kid a win, and more importantly, some much deserved recognition in the mainstream press.

Tommy's even created a weekly entry on our fantasy message board, called TSOZGGS -- Today's Story Of Zack Greinke Getting Screwed. Here are some of the updated stats he listed to paint this ugly picture:

--Runs the Royals have scored in Greinke's first 7 starts while he's been pitching (40 innings): 3

--Leads the Royals have given Zack Greinke in his starts: 2 (both 1-0 leads)

--Leads the Royals bullpen has blown after Greinke left the game: 1

--Greinke's career record and ERA: 8-15 and 3.84.

Tim Marchman of the New York Sun devoted his column this morning to the sorry Royals, under the header, "Struggling Royals Let The Kids Play." He contributed the following statistics:

--Going by Value Over Replacement Player (VORP), if you take Mike Sweeney's 18.6 mark away, the rest of the Royals have been worth -5.8.

--If you take away Greinke and reliever Andy Sisco, the pitching staff has been worth -9.2 runs.

--Second baseman Ruben Gotay and catcher John Buck have a combined 1.000 OPS (the same as Sweeney's).

--Joe McEwing has the fourth-highest OPS on the team with a .690.

--Eli Marrero and Terrence Long, who account for almost a quarter of the Royals' $36 million payroll, have hit .201 in 144 at-bats.

And you thought the Braves offense was bad. The Royals are basically a Quadruple-A team.

The New York Sun, by the way, has one of the best sports pages in the country, at least when it comes to the written work. The brilliant minds from Baseball Prospectus as well as my favorite basketball writer, John Hollinger, are regular contributors to the Sun, and I think Sean Lahman of Pro Football Prospectus fame has a column during the NFL season.

When you see the terms "VORP", "OBP", "offensive efficiency", and "points per possession" in your paper every morning, you know you're reading something that's a step ahead of the game.

The one complaint I have, though, is that the paper's page count is so small it can only fit in the box scores for the local teams. Still, for 25 cents it's a bargain, in my opinion.