The Kansas City Royals have already clinched a series win and a winning homestand after taking the first two contests against the Detroit Tigers. A thrilling comeback and walk-off on Friday and a dominant Michael Wacha outing last night have propelled the Royals back to 19-21 on the season. If the season ended today, the Royals would be the final team into the field in the American League.
Noah Cameron returns to the mound after missing his Tuesday start due to lower back tightness. The lefty has had a tough start to his sophomore year, with a 5.40 ERA over his first 31.2 innings. After two really good starts to begin the year, Cameron’s last 4 have been really rough, giving up 17 runs in 21 innings pitched. Cameron’s last start came on getaway day in Sacramento. The Athletics crushed Cameron, chasing him for 9 hits, 5 runs, over 5.1 innings. That start came 10 days ago.
The Royals offense has been rather good over the last 15 games, as the Royals have won 11 of those contests. A big part of it has been lineup consistency, with a lot of the same faces getting the start. Tonight however, Salvador Perez will get the game completely off. Perez has been dealing with hip soreness, which has meant a lot of DH’ing. Today is also Salvy’s 36th birthday, along with-it being Mother’s Day. So happy birthday Captain!
Elias Diaz starts behind the plate tonight, and Nick Loftin, who’s been swinging a hot bat, starts at second base. Isaac Collins will hit cleanup with Perez out of the lineup, otherwise, everything else is rather standard for the Royals tonight.
The Tigers have had a really really bad week. Tarik Skubal had elbow surgery and is out for the foreseeable future, Framber Valdez is serving a suspension for intentionally hitting Trevor Story after the Red Sox were crushing him, and position players keep getting hurt. With all of that, they have lost 5 in a row and 10 of their last 14.
Tonight is expected to be a bullpen game for them, after last night they had an opener, with Ty Madden throwing the bulk innings. Brenan Hanifee, a 27-year-old righty gets the start of the anticipated bullpen game. Hanifee has thrown 6.2 scoreless innings so far this season. Hanifee heavily relies on a sinker but also mixes in a slider and changeup.
Here is the Tigers starting lineup behind Hanifee and the bullpen.
The Royals can sweep their third straight weekend series tonight with a win. They swept the Angels at home two weeks ago, and the Mariners in Seattle last week. A win would also put the Royals just a single game under .500, which would be the first time since they were 7-8, going into the series finale against the White Sox. Tonight is the last game of 13 straight days of baseball for the Royals. They will finally have an off day tomorrow, before taking on the White Sox and Cardinals on the road next week. Tonight’s game can be streamed on Peacock or NBCSN, first pitch is set for 6:20 p.m. CT.
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