Game thread LXXXIV - Guardians at Royals

Can the Royals secure a series victory against their division rivals?

Even the most Royals-blue-glasses-wearing Royals fans couldn’t have expected the team to take the first two of this four-game series against the Guardians. Those of you who listen to the Royals Rundown podcast know that I was basically begging them to split the series. They’ve already done that and there are still two games to go, and those two games are with the Royals’ two best - out of an excellent batch - starting pitchers.

There are no guarantees tonight as Cole Ragans takes the mound. After all, Tanner Bibee has been no slouch himself and will pitch for the Guardians. But, well, things are looking bright again after a few weeks of dismal gray clouds as the Royals lost game after game and saw their large postseason cushion evaporate beneath them.

Let’s talk about Bibee for a second before we gush about Ragans, though.

Bibee is in only his second big league season and is 25. With Shane Bieber going down to injury after only two starts, this year, Bibee had to take over as the team’s ace and he’s done an admiral job. He has struck out seven or more in nine of his sixteen starts, including each of his last five. He doesn’t typically get deep into games as he has only pitched into the seventh three times. He has won each of his last two starts, striking out 19 in 12 innings while allowing only eight hits and two walks.

He has made only two starts against the Royals, one last year and one this year. Against them last year he allowed one run over five innings while striking out four and walking four in what would eventually become a Guardians win. He also pitched the second game against the Royals a couple of weeks ago and gave up three runs, two earned, over five innings in what would eventually be a come-from-behind Royals victory. In other words, both of the game he has pitched against the Royals have gone reasonably well for him with interesting flaws and had to be decided after he left. The Royals will definitely have their work cut out for them.

Ragans has had a couple of truly bad starts this year, but if he hasn’t allowed seven, he hasn’t allowed more than three. That means that 13 of his 17 starts have been quality starts. Despite those two awful starts, for the season he has a 3.03 ERA. Since his last bad start against the Angels, he has pitched in eight games to a 1.84 ERA while a lot of his other numbers match the season marks, including strikeout rate, walk rate, and home run rate. Those are three of the best indicators of a pitcher’s true performance, in my mind, and that means that striking out 64, walking 17, and giving up three home runs over his past eight starts isn’t an outlier for him, that’s just how he pitches.

If the Royals can win today, that will mean they’ve guaranteed that the series will end with them closer to the Guardians in the standings than they started. If they lose, they still have a chance to earn that tomorrow. If they lose both games, they still will have played the current best team in the AL and walked away without having lost ground. They’re playing with house money right now and they can’t walk away losers, but it would be really cool if they walked away winners.

Lineups

CJ Alexander remains on the bench after getting two starts in his first two games after being called up from Omaha. It’s a bummer for him, but Maikel Garcia, Nick Loftin, Freddy Fermin, and Michael Massey are all playing well enough that they aren’t leaving much of an opening for him. You love to see the hot-hitting Hunter Renfroe batting sixth because the five above him simply belong there over him. Don’t count out Kyle Isbel who has quietly been hitting quite well, lately, either.

If you’re reading this, it’s too late to get to the ballpark early, but Bo Jackson is being inducted into the Royals Hall of Fame today. I’m sure he’d appreciate it if the boys in blue honor the occasion with some phenomenal athletic feats.