Kansas City Royals

After a thrilling series with the Cleveland Indians, the Kansas City Royals traveled to Arlington to take on the Texas Rangers in a three-game series. This is the beginning of a six-game road trip that will end in Cleveland next week.

Game 1 has Jeff Francis on the mound for the boys in blue taking on Derek Holland for the Rangers.

The Kansas City Royals' organization has had several great teams throughout their history.

During the 1970s and 1980s, KC was the cream of the crop for baseball in the Midwest, helping to produce the franchise's only World Series title in 1985.

For this piece, I countdown the Top 10 Royals teams of all-time. Enjoy.

Begin Slideshow

2010 was dubbed the "Year of the Rookie" after many top tier prospects entered the big leagues.  Jason Heyward and Neftali Feliz were among those to make it to the show on Opening Day, but a wave of impact players took a little time to join them.

Among the superstar midseason replacements were Buster Posey, Mike Stanton, Danny Valencia, and Starlin Castro.  Even Evan Longoria had to wait to make the bigs until May.  These cornerstone players are now on their way to superstar status.

If you look at baseball with a limited enough scope, the game is full of more surprises than the Cracker Jack stand at Yankee Stadium.

Through 15 short games, we really can’t learn much about anything. A great hitter could struggle during such a time, a weak bat could smack two home runs and a bad team can win two-thirds of their games.

The challenge becomes separating the lucky from the talented, the flukes from the real things.

Kansas City Royals’ pitcher Bruce Chen tossed his third consecutive quality start on Tuesday, limiting the Indians to just two runs on six hits in seven innings. He also walked three and struck out five.

Who would have thought a rain delay would be so dangerous?

The Kansas City Royals grounds crew is among the best, but one groundskeeper needs to have a little safety training.

As the Royals crew was bringing out the tarp for a rain delay one of their men jumped over the front only to fall and be steamrolled by the tarp. That’s a good 1,500 pound reminder of just how not to do your job.

Evan Longoria, Josh Hamilton, Chase Utley, Rafael Furcal. There have been a number of ailing fantasy baseball stars. What looked like an offense that only featured Billy Butler as a fantasy option, has produced several players with hot starts.

Wilson Betemit leads the team with a .379 batting average. The third baseman has scored eight runs, drove in five more and swiped two bases. He’s not Evan Longoria, but he has been productive.

The Kansas City Royals will be taking on the Detroit Tigers in game one of a three-game set at Comerica Park in Detroit on Friday afternoon.

KC will be looking to continue their hot start to the season and improve their record to 5-2 while the Tigers are trying to climb out of a season-opening hole that has left them at 2-4 to start 2011.

You know how there are some guys that you just have a good feeling about?

Billy Butler is one of those guys for me.

I used to be an avid baseball card collector and there was always this sector of the hobby that only collected unproven prospects in hopes of hitting it big with one.

The Kansas City Royals knew that they were getting some talented arms when they left camp with rookie relievers Aaron Crow, Tim Collins and Nate Adcock.

But there was no way of telling that the trio would be this dominant in their few games in the big leagues.

In the team's recently completed season-opening series against the Angels, the threesome combined to pitch eight shutout innings while giving up six hits and striking out 11 in the process.