<\/p>\n
Like most Astros enthusiasts, it\u2019s always a cringeworthy moment when Houston ventures out to Kauffman Stadium. It\u2019s the site of the 2015 ALDS with flashbacks of falling short Game 5 flooding the memory banks. The landscape today has a few holdover members from that clash, Salvador Perez and Jose Altuve to name a few, but each club has fallen short of expectations, to put it mildly. The hope is that Houston can once again pull off a road sweep similar to what they accomplished last month at Wrigley.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
For the Royals perspective, we catch up with the \u201cWonder Dog\u201d Rex Hudler, color commentator for Royals baseball.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Q: My view has always been from afar that Salvador Perez is the pulse of this squad, but he\u2019s been battling through some things this season. What\u2019s going on with Perez?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n A: Salvy is the straw that stirs the Royals drink! He\u2019s been nursing a thumb contusion but they\u2019re expecting big things from him the rest of the way. After such a dismal start to the season, we\u2019re just hoping to finish .500 if I\u2019m being honest. That would be an accomplishment at this point. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Q: What has Michael Wacha meant to the club?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n A: He\u2019s as consistent as you want for a big-league starter. He has great poise and has as good of a fastball\/changeup combo there is in all of baseball. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Q: Could the Royals potentially deal Wacha before the trade deadline?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n A: He\u2019s a bargaining chip; there\u2019s no doubt about that. Contenders will be interested. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Q: Vinnie Pasquantino has shown some flashes this season. What\u2019s been the key to his success? <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n A: You know he has heated up after two months of no run production. I think taking more walks and going to the opposite field has helped him come out of the worst drought in his career. He\u2019s been using the whole field instead of pulling everything, and that\u2019s been the key. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Q: You\u2019ve had some adventures with your arms this season as well. What is the latest with the pitching staff? <\/strong>A: Chris Bubic has been injured and is a couple of starts from joining the rotation. We had a 5 and 5 road trip last week and I think there were positives to come from that. The bullpen is finally settled, early on Erceg blew five saves but Alex Lang has stepped up, and skipper Matt Quatraro has confidence in him. Royals\u2019 fans can hope that the starting pitching continues at a good clip, which is the main currency for clubs these days. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.crawfishboxes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Like most Astros enthusiasts, it\u2019s always a cringeworthy moment when Houston ventures out to Kauffman Stadium. It\u2019s the site of the 2015 ALDS with flashbacks of falling short Game 5 flooding the memory banks. The landscape today has a few holdover members from that clash, Salvador Perez and Jose Altuve to name a few, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2456349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[482787,482788],"class_list":["post-2456348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-houston-astros-analysis","tag-houston-astros-discussion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Astros-vs-Royals-Series-Primer-with-Royals-Broadcaster-Rex-Hudler.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2456348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2456350,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456348\/revisions\/2456350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2456349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2456348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2456348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2456348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}