It is Players’ Weekend! I hope this means that the Royals players get to be happier about winning, while the other team’s players simply are less sad about losing. Indeed, the 60-61 Royals welcome the 44-77 White Sox to Kauffman Stadium for a sweltering hot series. The Royals players *should* be happy about that, as the White Sox are just not a good team.
Their pitching leader in fWAR is Adrian Houser, who currently pitches for the Tampa Bay Rays. Their position player fWAR leader is Mike Tauchman, who has played only 55% of their games. They just do not have a lot of talent (they have Kyle Teel though, and I know many on this website are salty about that).
Nonetheless, the White Sox are not as bad as the Rockies and also still must field a full team as a member organization of MLB. They will start Aaron Civale, who has been traded every season in each of the last three years. He was last heard complaining about his playing time, I think, in Milwaukee. Well, now he gets to pitch for a sad sack organization. He has the exact same ERA with the White Sox as he did with the Brewers this season – 4.91 – though achieved in very different ways (he gave up a lot of dingers in Milwaukee, and he’s walking lots of guys in Chicago).
Civale doesn’t strike out many guys, he walks a lot of guys, and he’s having trouble with men on base. Maybe he is the cure for the Royals RISP ills.
The Royals will put Noah Cameron on the mound. With Bubic and Ragans on IL and Lugo struggling, Cameron is the de facto ace of this staff as a rookie. Somehow Cameron, Wacha, and newcomer Ryan Bergert have held the rotation together while Lugo swoons and Bailey falters (sorry). The Royals have started 11 different guys this season and somehow are still just…holding together. I know we say a lot about the pitching development now in the context of “unheralded guy is unexpectedly successful”, which is a micro-level thing (and a great thing). But the macro-level thing is that the Royals have managed to build a rotation that has remained at the top of the league despite all the injuries to the top-end talent. I still haven’t processed that.
A number of guys have been on a tear recently, like Kyle Isbel, and this series needs to continue that. The Royals have to take all these games from a team they should beat. They’re just kind of treading water near .500 otherwise.
The game starts at 7:10pm US Central at Kauffman Stadium. You can watch on FanDuel Sports Network Kansas City or listen on the Royals Radio Network.
(since the lineup tweet looks like it’s cut off in the embed)
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