Prove It Time In The Show-Me-State: Kansas City Royals Must Address Starting Pitching

Sitting at 39-52 currently, the Royals are seemingly at the point where attention of the majority of the public turns to football. SEC Media Days were this week, Big 12 does the same next week in Dallas. Of course much of the local attention from Kansas City sports fans will also venture north to St. Joe where the Kansas City Chiefs training camp is about to get underway.

Not counting 2006, we are now in the sixth full season with general manager Dayton Moore at the helm. Through 91 games, the Royals are two games ahead of last year's pace and yet still a game behind where they were at this point four seasons ago.

While it's no question the depth of the minor league system has improved, the results just aren't there at the major league level. The organization is simply treading water and even worse it feels like a regression.

Currently the pitching staff has a 4.47 ERA as a team, which places them 11th in the American League. Even worse, the starting pitching ERA is 5.42, only ahead of the Minnesota Twins. The 2007 ERA for the starting pitching staff? It was 4.88.

In 2007, the worst pitching staffs in the American League belonged to the Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers. Texas won just six games more than Kansas City in 2007, while Tampa finished three games behind the Royals. Fast forward to 2012 and both Texas and Tampa Bay have top five starting pitching staffs in the American League and are a combined 21 games above .500. Both organizations have been to the World Series during that time as well.

Sure Texas may have a larger market, and Tampa has a distinct weather advantage. However the Rays are hindered by a terrible stadium and a fan base that even makes people in Kansas City laugh.

This isn't meant to come off as being depressive, but there isn't really any other way to look at it. Six years is time enough to atleast see some improvement at the major league level, but the Royals haven't shown any marked improvement.

Yes the roster is young, and yes the pitching staff has seen more than the typical share of strife this year, but the current state of the pitching on the big league roster really isn't all that different than what Dayton Moore was brought in to improve upon.

Answers often come easy to us sitting at home, and I'm here to say I don't have the answers, all I know is the fans expect and deserve better than this. It will be interesting to see what the Royals can do in the next two weeks in trying to acquire starting pitcher for the rest of the season and beyond.

It's prove it time in the Show-Me-State.The rest of the month, along with this winter, are pivotal times in the direction of the franchise.

For more continued Royals coverage, head on over to Royals Review.