Pure bliss: beating up on the best team west of Boston

And I thought Monday night was fun. Last night we were treated to about as entertaining a late-June baseball game as we'll ever see. This is partly because Angels manager Mike Scioscia gets a little antsy in the dugout -- he's bored by stagnant AL-style ball, I feel -- and partly because, simply, the Royals and Angels are both playing great right now. Don't let the final score fool you: short of fireworks and magic, it was exciting, competitive for the most part (before the Royals hung a five-run 8th), and thoroughly enjoyable.

In the first four and a half innings alone, we were treated to a caught-stealing (of third, no less... you can't run on John Buck!), a well executed hit-and-run, a play at the plate (Joey Gathright thrown out), a triple (the most exciting play in baseball), a suicide squeeze (!) turned into a bunt single, a Billy Butler home run (the first of his career), an HBP (a Royal, of course), a sacrifice bunt turned into a single, a run scored on a wild pitch and a bloop-single RBI. Can we get more variety in there?

Later, KC supporters could cheer a Buck home run, a sacrifice fly, two stolen bases for Gathright (he went 3 for 3 with two runs and stretched a single into a double in the 9th... who says he's not part of the Royals' future?), a ground-rule double, an absolute moonshot home run for Alex Gordon... I know I'm just cataloging here, but the Royals won 12-4 (13 hits to 10) in just a little over three hours, in front of 44,002 people in gorgeous SoCal weather, and I'm finding it difficult to express how lovely it all was. Simply lovely is all.

Oh, and Gil Meche went six with six strikeouts for the quality start and win. I love this team.