Know Your Enemy: Royals, again
Your Enemy
Royals (14-23)
How is it that in this shorter season it feels like we play the Royals 95% of the time? I get that they're the same division, close proximity, blah blah blah, but good lord.
As exciting as a walk-off is, the Royals should be an easy series. I guess if we plow through everyone every single time, it's less exciting.
I'd like to thank the Royals for not bothering to sweep the Cleveland Baseball Team which was literally their one job this week. Despite Matt Harvey having left New York, he's still getting trashed by the NY Post so that makes it death, taxes, New York media hating Matt Harvey.
Enemy Pitchers
It's Dylan Cease vs Danny Duffy on Thursday. In Duffy's last appearance against the White Sox, he gave up seven hits and three earned runs in the loss. Duffy struck out six, but gave up two home runs. Duffy is sitting at a 2-2 record with a 4.11 ERA. Meanwhile, Cease is making his second straight start against the Royals. He's sitting at a nice, round 3.00 ERA with a 4-2 record. In Cease's last start against the Royals, he was out for 4 ⅓ and allowed six walks with five strikeouts.
Dane Dunning vs Brady Singer is the rematch-matchup set for Friday. Singer has a 5.19 ERA and a 1-3 record. He made it through five innings in his last appearance against the Sox, giving up five hits and three runs. Dunning threw five no-hit innings on Sunday against the Royals (but was removed due to pitch count). He's been making some nice appearances since his call-up, striking out 14 over 9 ⅓ innings in two starts.
Lucas Giolito vs Kris Bubic comes on Saturday, so bring on the "boob itch" jokes. Bubic has a painful 0-4 record and a 5.46 ERA. Brilliant Managerial Brain Mike Matheny said that Bubic delivered his best outing of the season when he faced the White Sox last Sunday: He went 5 ⅓ innings and gave up six hits and two runs while striking out a career high of eight. Giolito had a rocky last appearance vs. the Twins (pretty common in a first game post no-hitter) allowing three walks, seven hits, and 34 strikeouts.
Dallas Keuchel and Brad Keller go head-to-head on Sunday in the Brad Keller revenge game. Keller is the ace of this Royals' bunch and held the Cleveland baseball team scoreless on one hit through his first six innings last time out; he ended up allowing three hits and one run overall through 6 ⅓ total innings. Keuchel apparently had some stomach issues in his last start against the Twins (yuck) but he still managed to work through five innings and allow just one unearned run.
Other stuff
Baseball Super Mind Mike Matheny wasted his extra innings runner during the last series with an ill-advised attempted steal of third, so don't expect him to make the same mistake again. Sox starters have to go as long as possible to give the bullpen some rest after the painful series in Minnesota. Cutting down on the errors and showing some offense should be common sense, but with shades of 2018 showing during the last two games against the Twins it turns out common sense might not be all that common.
Since we're playing the Royals and they are the biggest babies ever about celebrations, here's hoping the home run squad comes back, with bat flips to the moon.