Coke, fiend.

The title is misleading. Though the Royals managed to have a Coke and a smile, Phil Coke wasn't the problem per se. He was beating himself up after the game, but let's be honest: there was no reason to bring him in. In a bizarre and ironic twist, Veras had been brought in as a "righty specialist" and didn't get the job done. But let's not crucify Veras, either. The bigger question is what buzzcut-sporting genius decided to pull Marte for no reason other than the lefty-righty game? 

Am I being unfair to Girardi? Maybe. He continues to inspire very little confidence in me, and so it's always going to be tempting for me to point a finger his way in these situations.

Meanwhile, what were the Royals wearing? I love powder blue unis as much as the next guy, provided the next guy is my cousin, who is the only other guy who likes powder blue unis (Hi Frank), but there were serious problems here. First commandment of powder blue unis: Thou shalt wear powder blue pants with thy powder blue jersey. I will waive commandment #2 (thou shalt not wear powder blue at home) on the grounds that the Royals wore powder blue at home in the height of the Powder Blue Era. However, note the white-on-blue lettering on George Brett in this...uh...interesting photo:

The Royals' alternate shirt as seen today was blue-on-white-on-blue, which looked like death. It looked, actually, like they just ripped the patches off their whites and sewed them on the blues. 

By the way, apparently the Royals had these unis last year, too... I could just admit that I forgot and/or hadn't noticed, but instead I'm going to pretend I just felt the need to comment now because I didn't have a blog then.