The Kansas City Royals broke their losing streak last night, nipping the Oakland Athletics 2-1. It's difficult to assign credit for this win. The offense only scored two runs. The pitching staff allowed one, but a dozen Athletics reached base. You can almost credit this win to the Oakland offense, which was 0 for 13 with men in scoring position last night.

Joe Posnanski looks at the positives in this game for the Royals, including Ambiorix Burgos:

Burgos is a 21-year-old kid from the Dominican Republic who throws a 99-mph fastball and a devastating split-fingered fastball. Now, he does not always throw them for strikes. And he has, a bit too frequently, grooved a pitch and given up home runs. But he’s got some kind of stuff. Like so many of the Royals, he’s learning in the big leagues rather than in the minors. Results are mixed.

He came into face Oakland’s Nick Swisher, a hot-hitting rookie, who is part of an amazing statistic. The A’s are 63-35 when he’s in the lineup. They are 5-19 when he is not. Anyway, Swisher was up, Burgos got ahead one ball and two strikes, and then he threw two balls. The count was 3-2, the bases were loaded, the Royals had lost 19 games in a row. And then, Burgos looked in at the catcher. And he shook his head.

He wound up. Swisher readied himself for a fastball at about 100 mph.

Instead, this kid threw a splitter. An 88-mph split-fingered fastball. Swisher was so far ahead of it, he could have swung twice. But it only took one swing. He struck out.

“Unbelievable,” Jose Lima said.

“I just fell back and said, ‘Wow,’ ” Buddy Bell said.

“Take that,” Royals catcher Paul Phillips said.

Joe also defends Baird's record. It's a column well worth reading.