"Day one of Joakim Soria's new life as a setup reliever must have felt different. How could it not? The artist formerly known as the Mexicutioner is now a broken ballplayer, at least at the moment, having asked off the closer job — and the trick now is figuring out how long this will last.

"Maybe three days," Royals pitching coach Bob McClure says. "Maybe five days. Maybe a week. Nobody knows. But when he's ready, you'll just see it."

That's the hope, anyway, the confident upper lip currently being projected by a franchise rocked and blindsided by the sudden struggles of what had been the team's only reliable player the last four years.

They swear he is healthy, and this would be a much easier conversation if he wasn't.

They swear they see smooth mechanics, and this would be a much easier conversation if they didn't.

At the moment, there are only theories and hopes and questions that will affect the promising but still tenuous future of the team.

Like, at what point do the Royals stop waiting for Soria to get better as a relief pitcher and try him in the rotation?

"When a player is struggling, or a team's struggling, or an organization is struggling," general manager Dayton Moore says, "it's all of our jobs to examine why and how we can fix it. Certainly you discuss all different opinions people have of Joakim Soria.

"I've not spoken to anybody about (moving him to the rotation). But it's important to stay open-minded.""