<table> </table> It&#8217;s an hour or so before Zack Greinke&#8217;s first pitch, and Billy Butler is talking to a teammate.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m guaranteeing a shutout tonight,&#8221; Butler says. &#8220;What do you think?&#8221;</p><p>The teammate shakes his head.</p><p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t guarantee a shutout,&#8221; he says. &#8220;I don&#8217;t care what it is.&#8221;</p><p>Butler holds his ground. He is guaranteeing a shutout.</p><p>&#8220;You know why?&#8221; he says. &#8220;Because I&#8217;m playing pretty (expletive) good defense right now.&#8221;</p><p>Butler&#8217;s words are more for impact than boast. He wants a laugh, and he gets it. But there is a point here: the Greinke-mania is giving the rest of the team boosted confidence, and the result just might introduce the other players to a bigger audience.</p><p>Greinke gets the attention and the standing ovations &#8212; four of them during the Royals&#8217; 3-0 win over Chicago at Kauffman Stadium on Monday &#8212; but there is more to what looks like an interesting baseball summer in Kansas City.</p><p>When people get to know this Royals team over the next few weeks and months, they will find more to like than just the phenom pitcher.</p><p>You might be familiar enough with Gil Meche &#8212; he actually started opening day, remember? &#8212; and Joakim Soria, the Mexicutioner. But what about Coco Crisp?</p><p>He has the name, of course, and a lengthy highlight&#8217;s worth of catches in center field and 17 walks. That&#8217;s a pace of more than 100, which no Royal has done since Kevin Seitzer &#8212; fitting because Seitzer is now the hitting coach and generally given a healthy dose of the credit for the Royals&#8217; increased patience.</p><p>What about David DeJesus? He has the ladies&#8217; man reputation and on Monday hit an 0-2 pitch into the Royals&#8217; bullpen for a home run, and with Greinke on the mound, it was the most action those relievers got all night.</p><p>What about Mike Jacobs? He and his gelled-up blonde hair lead the team with four home runs, and there are people in the Royals&#8217; clubhouse who will tell you he brought a contagious swagger to this team.</p><p>There are others. Alberto Callaspo is hitting .378. Mark Teahen is the team comedian and hitting .300 with three home runs since taking over for the injured Alex Gordon at third base.</p><p>Butler had an RBI single on Monday, one more reason to believe he&#8217;s coming out of a terrible season-opening slump. He also had quite a night at first base.</p><p>There was a sharp grounder by Scott Podsednik that went off Butler&#8217;s chest and was ruled a double, a highlight scoop of a throw by Callaspo that Greinke called &#8220;the best play of his life,&#8221; and then a glove flip to Greinke that turned out fine but Butler admits was a mistake.</p><p>&#8220;That play was impossible,&#8221; Greinke said. &#8220;It looked pretty easy, probably, watching it. He made that as tough on me as he could possibly make it.&#8221;</p><p>So it&#8217;s more than just Greinke that&#8217;s interesting. After Monday&#8217;s game, Crisp talked about how baseball fans got to know Joe Maddon and B.J. Upton and Evan Longoria better as last season progressed and the Rays kept winning. Maybe that can happen around the Royals this summer.</p><p>There was a walk-up crowd of more than 6,000 on Monday &#8212; two to three times more than average. ESPN showed some of Greinke&#8217;s performance during a rain delay of its scheduled game. People are paying more attention now, here in Kansas City and beyond.</p><p>Now comes the interesting part, when the Royals&#8217; performances and personalities shape what this new and bigger audience sees. Butler, done with the jokes now, has a suggestion.</p><p>&#8220;I want people to see our intensity,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I haven&#8217;t seen everybody play every single day, but it&#8217;s going to be tough for me to think if I watch the season up to this point say anybody&#8217;s played harder than we have.&#8221;