There was really only one word for Friday night&rsquo;s game: Depressing.</p><p> You hate to use that word on a fireworks Friday night leading into Independence Day. There was a sellout crowd at Kauffman Stadium, and RLBS (Royals Lone Bright Spot) Zack Greinke was pitching, and the weather was just about perfect, and, hey, at the end of the day it&rsquo;s still major-league baseball, a wonderful thing for a city to have.</p><p> But &hellip; man, that was depressing. The Royals lost to the White Sox 5-0, and the game wasn&rsquo;t that close. This was the fourth straight game the Royals have scored one or zero runs &mdash; that ties a team record, so there is that. The Royals did not get a runner to third base until the eighth inning. The Royals hit into two more double plays, an astounding feat when you consider they managed only six base runners. The Royals did not manage a walk for the second straight game. The Royals&rsquo; lineup featured seven players who are hitting .253 or worse. </p><p> Here&rsquo;s one: You could <em>add up</em> the batting averages of Friday&rsquo;s left side of the infield &mdash; Luis Hernandez (.204) plus Tony Pe&ntilde;a (.093) &mdash; and not get to .300.</p><p> Yes. Depressing. It&rsquo;s strange, the Royals have been all kinds of terrible this decade, all kinds of embarrassing, but there&rsquo;s something dismal and dreary about this particular team that makes this season the most painful in memory. Maybe it&rsquo;s this: The Royals absolutely should not be this bad. They actually have starting pitching now, one of the hardest things in the world to find (or, anyway, one of the hardest thing for the <em>Royals </em>to find). They have gotten good to excellent starting pitching all year. </p><p> No, really. The Royals have had 43 &ldquo;quality starts&rdquo; &mdash; six innings or more, three runs or fewer &mdash; third in the American League, just a couple behind league leader Toronto.</p><p> You already know: Greinke has been otherworldly (he was off his game Friday night, but even so he made it six innings, allowed two earned runs). Brian Bannister has been good, Gil Meche sporadic but often good, and Luke Hochevar has done some good pitching lately.</p><p> Is that enough to make the Royals contenders? No. But it should be enough to keep the Royals from being dismal &hellip; and the Royals are dismal anyway. The Royals have spent more money on payroll than ever before. That should be enough to keep them from being dismal &hellip; and the Royals are dismal anyway. The Royals have spent a lot of money and effort on developing their minor-league system the last three years. That should be enough to keep them from being dismal &hellip; and the Royals are dismal anyway.</p><p> Depressing. Absolutely. If assigned to come up with just one sentence to explain just why the Royals are playing as badly as they ever have before, I would probably come up with this one: &ldquo;Tony Pe&ntilde;a Jr. <em>and</em> Luis Hernandez are on this team.&rdquo;</p><p> That should explain just how bad this team is. Pe&ntilde;a and Hernandez are shortstops. Neither of them can hit. Neither of them can run. Neither of them has any power.</p><p> There&rsquo;s an increasingly popular statistic called OPS+ which measures a players OPS (on-base-plus-slugging percentage) against the league average. All you really need to know is 100 is exactly average &mdash; a 100 OPS+ is an average major-league baseball player.</p><p> Luis Hernandez came into Friday&rsquo;s game with an OPS+ of 4.</p><p> Tony Pe&ntilde;a Jr. came into Friday&rsquo;s game with an OPS+ of minus-27.