Today we’re talking with Rip Van Winkleball, a longtime Royals fan who just awakened from a six-month slumber.

Rip: So how is it going with our boys at the All-Star break? How many games are we behind?

Actually the Royals are in first place in the American League Central. They have a seven-game lead.

Rip: Excuse me. I’m still a little groggy. I thought you said the Royals were leading their division by seven games.

That’s what I said. They’ve already won 51 games, only 11 fewer than they won all last season.

Rip: Unbelievable. After all these years, the Royals’ young pitching finally has come of age.

Not exactly. The Royals’ best starting pitcher has been Jose Lima, who was playing in an independent league when the season started.

Rip: Jose Lima? You’ve got to be kidding. Didn’t he have a Boeing earned run average with Detroit last season?

Yeah, Lima’s ERA was 7.77 with the Tigers who, incidentally, are even worse than they were last season when they lost 106 games.

Rip: What about our young pitchers? How are they doing?

Well, let’s see … Chris George leads the staff with nine wins — four more than any other K.C. hurler — but he’s now in Omaha.

Rip: In Omaha? Is he on a rehab assignment?

Nope. He rolled craps with a 7.11 ERA and had surrendered more walks than strikeouts, so they told him to head north on I-29.

Rip: Amazing. The Royals’ biggest winner now is in the minors. Go figure. What about the rest of the staff?

Pretty non-descript except for rookie closer Mike MacDougal who has 24 saves. Manager Tony Peña already has used 22 pitchers, 11 of them as starters, and that’s only four fewer than he used all of last year when the Royals lost 100 games.

Rip: OK, so the pitching hasn’t been remarkable. That has to mean the Royals are making a lot of noise at the plate. Mike Sweeney must be on a tear.

Indeed. Sweeney is hitting .321 with a glossy .440 on-base percentage. But he has missed 30 games with assorted injuries, including the last 22.

Rip: Well, then, who has picked up the slack?

Pretty much everybody. Sweeney is the only K.C. player hitting over .300, but several others have batting averages between .265 and .300. At the same time, six players have driven in at least 40 runs and seven have scored at least 40 runs.

Rip: Sounds like — I know this is a cliche — a team effort.

It really is. Take the RBI totals. Carlos Beltran has 54, Raul Ibañez 53, Michael Tucker 52 and Sweeney 50.

Rip: Before I went to sleep, I heard some talk about trading Beltran. Did management try to unload him?

K.C. officials say they don’t want to trade Beltran even though it’s a virtual certainty he won’t be back next year. And if the Royals stay in contention, why trade him? It’s not like they’ll receive nothing in return if he leaves. As compensation, K.C. will receive a high draft pick.

Rip: So what you’re saying is the Royals’ starting pitching has been spotty, the hitting has been unspectacular and Mike Sweeney hasn’t played in about a third of the games. And the Royals are leading their division by seven games??? Give me a break.

What you have to remember is the Royals are in baseball’s weakest division. The Tigers are putrid, the Indians are dreadful, the White Sox are floundering and the defending division champion Twins are in the tank. K.C. is the only team in the division with a winning record and the Royals are only 10 games over .500.

Rip: What are the experts saying? I’ll bet they’re all predicting the Royals will fold in the second half. I mean, who would believe a team could lose 100 games, then win the division the next year?

Deep down, most of the pundits probably don’t believe it’s possible, but they also thought the Royals would have been road kill already. And if you check the remainder of the schedule, it shows the Royals have 50 games remaining with teams with below .500 records and only 18 with teams that have won more than they’ve lost.

Rip: Sometimes, I guess, it isn’t so much how you play as who you play.

Exactly.