{"id":2510276,"date":"2026-07-21T00:28:53","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T00:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2510276"},"modified":"2026-07-21T00:28:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T00:28:53","slug":"royals-vs-giants-july-20-live-discussion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/royals-vs-giants-july-20-live-discussion\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals vs Giants July 20 Live Discussion"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Well, let\u2019s forget that yesterday ever happened. The Royals now continue their NL West tour of duty. Today, one of the other California teams, the San Francisco Giants<\/a>, comes to Kansas City<\/a> for a three-game series. At 42-57, the Giants are not much better than the 40-60 Royals.<\/p>\n

The Royals have a slightly better group of position players \u2013 the Royals sit at 16th in batter fWAR, while the Giants are at 21st. But as you might expect, the Giants make up that difference (and then some) with their superior pitching. That\u2019s not to say their pitching is *good*, but it\u2019s certainly better than the dead-last-in-fWAR staff of the Royals. The two teams are actually pretty close in starter fWAR; the Royals bullpen is just so atrocious. Again, the Giants bullpen is also bad! The Royals are just in their own league of bad.<\/p>\n

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Because they are required to have a starting pitcher, the Royals will put Michael Wacha on the mound to pitch. He\u2019s the innings leader for the Royals and sports a 3.77 ERA \/ 4.00 FIP. You know, Michael Wacha things. Just like\u2026the same stuff he\u2019s been doing for years. I feel like I\u2019ve had Wacha on Mondays quite a bit this season, and there\u2019s not much to say about him. He was an All-Star.<\/p>\n

The Giants are countering with Trevor McDonald<\/a>, a 25-year-old right-hander, who by K%\/BB% is very nearly a clone of Wacha. The main difference is that he\u2019s a heavy ground-ball pitcher (56.2%!) \u2013 if I set the leaderboard threshold down to 60 innings pitched minimum, McDonald ranks 3rd among all pitchers in ground-ball rate. He has an inflated ERA due to a low strand rate. I\u2019m not sure how real this is, given the sample size, but he seems to fall apart if anyone gets on base. His K%\/BB% get significantly worse. He\u2019s just as good as Wacha, if not better, with the bases empty.<\/p>\n

The game starts at 6:40pm US Central. You can watch on Royals.TV and listen on 96.5 The Fan\/The Royals Radio Network.<\/p>\n

Lineups:<\/p>\n

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