Local media types, as they are wont to do, seem to believe that his time served as trade bait has infused young Clayton Richard with a sense of purpose and, more importantly, control of his pitches. This may very well be the case, as many an arm or bat or suit has often only had those moments of stark, harsh realization once the people who sign their paychecks threaten to ship them out of town.

Except this all comes on the heels of dominating the Royals who, despite any kind of upward trajectory we all want to see them attain, are still just the Royals. For perspective, a list of players who went a step further within the past ten years and held the monarchs scoreless for an entire day:

2008:
Mark Buehrle
Javier Vazquez
John Danks

2007:
Jon Garland
Lance Broadway
Jose Contreras

2006:
Javier Vazquez
Jose Contreras

2005:
Jose Contreras

2004:
Jose Contreras

2003:
None.

2002:
Jon Garland

2001:
None. The Royals, by the way, lost 97 games that year but were only shut out six times. There’s probably some kind of moral victory in this, although losing 97 games is still awful.

2000:
None.

1999:
None.

If the last-night’s-gem-as-indicator-of-all-things logic is to hold, owning those Royals would only seem to have a handful of possible outcomes: trade to the Mets, trade to the Angels, reassignment to Charlotte, awkwardly-placed wave of the future or immortal franchise hero.

Obviously things aren’t so simple, which is exactly the point. Richard has had a few good games, which is great for he and us alike, but so what? He’s also had some terrible outings not just this year but even this month. But this is always the trouble with following baseball: a good stretch or season or career is never visible under a microscope as narrow as a box score or a beat report.

But we knew that, which is why the rest of us will just wait patiently and say pitch on, young Clayton. Pitch on!