Robert Frost once commented that writing poetry without rhyme is like playing tennis without a net. Without it, what's the point?

Royals right-hander Paul Byrd feels the same way about games and strategy. Whether it's Scrabble, Backgammon, even Connect Four as a kid -- pretty sneaky, sis -- he always brings a plan to execute and adjust. Gin? Keep your options open by mixing groups and runs. Monopoly? Bleed your opponent with the middle-rent New York and Illinois Aves.

But as a pitcher without Boardwalk or Park Place velocity, playing games on the mound is not just fun, but his means of survival.

	Paul Byrd Starting pitcher Kansas City Royals Profile
	2002 SEASON STATISTICS GM IP W-L BB SO ERA 23 160.1 14-7 25 86 3.42

Strategy is key. And sneakiness ... well, even his catcher occasionally doesn't know what's coming.

"He never tips his hand -- he's got a great poker face," Royals catcher A.J. Hinch says. "He's so guarded in everything he does. He doesn't even tell me. We'll agree on a slider to an established hitter, but then he'll throw a fastball inside, which to everyone in baseball is a mistake. But it obviously works."

More and more obviously every five days. Byrd has been a Royals revelation in 2002, bringing a 14-7 record and 3.42 ERA into his Thursday afternoon start against the Yankees in New York. Among the American League leaders in wins, innings (160.1), complete games (five, including two shutouts) and fewest walks per nine innings (1.4), Byrd also carries a 40.1-inning walkless streak that with 6.1 more innings on Thursday could extend past Royals record-holder Doug Bird, tantalizing headline writers across metro Kansas City. This for a 31-year-old itinerant righty who entered the year 35-35 and whose previous claim to fame had been his striking likeness to actor Kelsey Grammer.

Perhaps most surprising, however, is not how well Byrd is pitching, but that he will continue to do so for the Royals. His high effectiveness and low salary ($850,000 that could become around $2 million with incentives) made him such an apparent lock to be traded before the July 31 deadline that he and his wife Kym packed up their entire Overland Park home -- dishes wrapped, boxes sealed -- in anticipation of a deal. But the Royals decided to keep their Byrd in the hand, resisting offers from the contending Red Sox, Mariners and Cardinals, thereby preserving his pursuit of one of the most anonymous 20-win seasons in decades.

As Curt Schilling blazes his way to that milestone, ingesting scouting reports for days in advance, the soft-tossing Byrd does much of his thinking after he reaches the mound, and occasionally later. Byrd will detect a subtle lean by a batter, even a tiny glance at a defender, and adjust accordingly. Even in the middle of his delivery.

"Sometimes I'll watch the hitter as I start my windup -- if he starts to lean or take a step forward and is looking away, I'll switch up and throw inside," Byrd says. "I like doing that. He sees the defense playing away, he's looking away, I'll throw in. You just get a feel.

"All the preparation, about 40-50 percent of it I take into the game. The other 50 percent or so is me reading the hitter. I much prefer to read the hitter versus looking at the scouting report. Here's my thinking: So-and-so hits the fastball away. OK, but does he hit my fastball away?"

	“	All the preparation, about 40-50 percent of it I take into the game. The other 50 percent or so is me reading the hitter. I much prefer to read the hitter versus looking at the scouting report. Here's my thinking: So-and-so hits the fastball away. OK, but does he hit my fastball away? ”
		— Paul Byrd

When the subject turns to Schilling, his former Phillies teammate, Byrd almost bubbles out of his folding clubhouse chair. "Can I tell you something funny about Curt Schilling?" he says. "I remember sitting in a pitching meeting, and he was saying things like, 'You know what, all you have to do is give this guy a fastball away and he'll pop you up every time.' Like (Sammy) Sosa. And we're all looking at him like, 'Are you nuts? Shut your piehole. You throw 97 miles an hour. Up and away for you is nothing like up and away for me. For me, that ball ends up in the seats.' The scouting report only goes so far. I love to be creative."

For Byrd, that creativity is baseball's version of backgammon adjustments, of surveying weather patterns in chess. It's outthinking the hitter that gives Byrd, an economics major at Louisiana State, his greatest satisfaction.

As for the lack of fanfare, Byrd likes it; he's so fond of Kansas City that he preferred not to be traded, even into a pennant race. "My family enjoys the area. My wife really enjoys the area -- it's clean and safe," he says. The older of Byrd's two young sons, 6-year-old Grayson, was thrilled when daddy originally didn't make this year's AL All-Star team. "He was all excited," Byrd says. "He wanted to go to the amusement park."

Amusement is hard to find around the Royals this season, with the club hovering around .400 and on its way to at least 90 losses for the third time in four years. But Byrd wants to stay not just through this season -- his chances of being traded this month are slim because he'll never clear waivers -- but long-term as well, offering to accept less money than (what he perceives to be) his market value to make sleepy Kansas City his permanent home. Is this just another of Byrd's in-game strategies? A rope-a-dope, emphasis on dope? Not really -- like Scott Rolen, the quiet and pensive Byrd is far more concerned with where he works than how much he gets paid to do it.

A changeup in this baseball's fastball economics, to be sure, but not surprising coming from a pitcher whose living derives from keeping others off-balance. Only by mixing his cutter, slider, curve, change and new screwball with his high-80s fastball -- and by throwing them where he wants to -- can Byrd get by. Lefties with his style get an annuity. Righties get skepticism. It's for this reason that Byrd wore a Kansas City uniform this year -- non-tendered by the arbitration-fearing Royals last winter, Byrd re-signed anyway because the club knew him and wouldn't wonder how in the world he could ever get guys out.

He had once before, even making the National League All-Star team for the Phillies after a shocking 11-5, 3.94 first half in 1999. "Right after that my shoulder started killing," he says, "and the wheels fell off." Surgery in 2000 left him all but on the scrap heap. The Phillies traded him for pitcher Jose Santiago last June and he went 6-6, 4.05 for Kansas City, but it was easy to cast that run with the Phillies as his 16 decisions of fame.

Byrd's success this season still puts the Royals in a tough spot. In signing him for another three years, will they be paying Byrd retroactively for his best season and only funding a decline? Or will they continue to get a steal? Either way, teammates insist that Byrd is vital to the club's efforts to rebuild around a young staff that reveres him.

The Royals are hoping to repeat their early-'80s Saberhagen-Jackson-Gubicza history by developing a homegrown rotation, and Byrd is a big part of demonstrating the mental side of a game so many youngsters shirk because of their physical gifts. "You watch him pitch and change speeds and hit spots, and you think about what he's doing," 23-year-old lefty Jeremy Affeldt says. "He's been my mentor." Affeldt joins Runelvys Hernandez, Miguel Ascencio and Shawn Sedlacek as a candidate for next year's rotation, while the Royals have other promising prospects such as Jimmy Gobble and Kyle Snyder behind them.

For now, Hernandez, Ascencio and Sedlacek would be better as Scrabble tiles. Maybe that's not so bad. Don't be surprised if Byrd pulls out a Scrabble board to teach those guys -- or discover for himself -- some strategic maneuver he can apply to the game of baseball. After all, Byrd the pitcher can't ever rely on a seven-letter heater; it's the several interlocking short ones that earn him his points.

Pretty sneaky. Also, smart.

Alan Schwarz is the Senior Writer of Baseball America magazine and a regular contributor to ESPN.com.