Gamethread 142: Twins at Royals

The Royals have won two games in a row, which means they’re now 3-4 on the homestand. Naturally, they’ve picked up a game on the Wild Card standings. A win tonight – plus a loss each by the Mariners and Rangers – would have the Royals tied for a playoff spot for the first time since May 25. Regardless of their playoff standings at the end of the night, they’d best be banking wins against the Twins because next week they go on the road against a Hot (in) Cleveland club for four before heading to Philadelphia for three. A win tonight would also mark the first time they have won three games in a row since August 19th, when they were in the middle of their excellent 8-2 homestand.

If they’re going to win tonight, their work will be cut out for them. Nemesis Joe Ryan will take the mound for the Twins. They may not have a good lineup or much of a bullpen, but Joe Ryan is still an excellent pitcher who has gone 8-0 against the Royals in 10 career starts. He’s made two starts against them this year and won them both with a 0.75 ERA. The Royals’ best hope seems to be patience and hoping he doesn’t just throw a ton of strikes. Except, yeah, he always throws a ton of strikes.

Well, maybe the Royals’ starter can match him. Seth Lugo had to go on the IL with back pain earlier this week, so Stephen Kolek returns to make his second career start as a Royal. Matt Chabot wrote a really good scouting report on him earlier this week, so give that a read if you want to know more about him. Just to add my two cents, he does appear to have changed up his pitch mix after coming to Kansas City. It’s one start, so don’t read too much into it, but he threw his sinker a lot less and filled in the space with sliders, changeups, and sweepers – three pitches the Royals have had great success helping players improve.

Matt noted in the scouting report that the changeup would be important to his success as a starter, and it went from a pitch he almost never threw strikes with that got hammered to one he controlled the zone with, and no one could square up. It was potentially his best pitch last weekend.

He still wasn’t really getting any chase, which could be a cause for concern, but maybe he can add some of that in his second effort tonight.

For the first time of (hopefully) many, many Royals games, Jac Caglianone and Carter Jensen are both in the lineup. This shifts Mike Yastrzemski to left field for the first time in a Royals uniform, giving the Royals perhaps their best defensive outfield of the season. Unfortunately, this is at least partly because Bobby Witt Jr. is out after being pulled early in last night’s game due to back spasms. Maikel Garcia shifts over to shortstop, and Nick Loftin will play third. As of this writing, there’s still no word on the severity of Bobby’s injury, but if KC hopes to make it to the playoffs, much less do anything once they’re there, they’ll need their superstar back and at full power sooner rather than later.

If you think the Royals have a bad offense, the Twins have two batters that carry an OPS worse than .500 and three hitters with batting averages below .200, with one other just above. It’s going to be hard for the Royals to score on Joe Ryan, but hopefully it’ll be just as hard for this putrid Twins’ offense to score on Kolek.