The Royals have battled their way back to .500. Again. The White Sox had been playing better since the break, but after last night have now lost eight of their last ten. The Royals need to keep that trend going and get back above .500 for the first time since mid-June if they want to continue to pretend like they’re in the playoff hunt.
They finally got some good news on the injury front for the first time in a while, as Michael Lorenzen has been activated and will start tonight’s game. The team’s weakest rotation member, Bailey Falter, has been subsequently removed to the bullpen. Unfortunately, this left Luinder Avila as the odd man out, and he has been demoted back to Omaha. Don’t worry, though, Luinder, you’ll be back and to stay before you know it.
Lorenzen’s best start of the season came before he hit the IL right before the All-Star Break, when he pitched seven shutout innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks. His rehab starts didn’t go particularly well, but those don’t count. Unless he also looks bad against the White Sox today.
The White Sox will counter with rookie Sean Burke. Burke has been very nearly the definition of a mid starting pitcher with a 4.26 ERA, 0.9 fWAR, and 10.7% K-BB%. His last time out, he allowed two runs in three innings to the Guardians and took the loss. He’s not an innings-eater; he’s only pitched more than six innings twice this year and more than five only six times in 19 starts. He has started against the Royals once this year, taking a no-decision in a team loss after pitching six innings of one-run ball on May 6. That was the game where Chase Meidroth dropped a pop-up, and the Royals walked it off in the ninth.
This lineup doesn’t have much interesting happening in it, except that Adam Frazier is batting above Randal Grichuk, who is yet to really put his mark on the team in the way Frazier has. Five games into the homestand, John Rave has started only once following his defensive blunder in Minnesota. That would seem to spell his doom once Jac Caglianone is ready to return from his rehab assignment – Cags is 7-for-13 with a double and a home run so far, further cementing the idea that AAA pitchers have nothing to contain him and he needs to either sink or swim at the big league level.
The White Sox have only three above-average hitters in their lineup by season OPS, all at the top, so hopefully Lorenzen can have an easy return to pitching dominance tonight.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.royalsreview.com ’
