Game thread CXXIX - Phillies at Royals

Can the Royals win their series with one game to go?

After winning the first game of the series in convincing fashion, the Royals have a chance to do yet another thing that no one expects and win the first two games of their series against the Phillies, tonight.

With last night’s victory, following taking five of six from the Reds and Angels, the Royals have convincingly announced a return to their early season form where they could beat anyone except the Orioles and Twins. While the rest of the division stumbled, the Royals kept winning last night and will enter tonight’s game only a single win (plus a Guardians loss) from tying for first place in the division for the first time this season since everyone was 0-0.

Brady Singer will take the mound tonight. After out-pitching lefty Andrew Abbott in Sunday’s contest, he will be tasked with taking a much tougher lefty in the Phillies’ Ranger Suárez.

The good news for the Royals is that Singer has been pretty good this year and Sunday’s outing represented a rebound for him from a couple of poor starts. Even accounting for those poor starts, Singer has pitched well in the second half with a 3.11 ERA and 2.69 FIP in 37.2 innings across six starts. He’s also struck out 37 while walking only 8 in that span.

Meanwhile, Suárez hasn’t pitched in the big leagues for over a month due to a back injury. He’ll be returning from his rehab stint to face the Royals tonight. Before going on the shelf, Suárez had been struggling a bit with a 7.71 ERA in his last four starts. Over the season he’s allowed 100 hits in 119 innings, but over that span, he allowed 29 hits in only 21 innings. If his issues weren’t just health-related or if he’s hesitant at all in his return, the Royals could be in luck.

The Royals, of course, will need some luck as they have struggled against left-handed pitchers this year with their second-tier players such as Vinnie Pasquantino, Michael Massey, MJ Melendez, and Kyle Isbel all being left-handed which often causes manager Matt Quatraro to use his third-rate or worse players like Garrett Hampson to fill out his lineup card.

Lineups

Despite the last paragraph, the only lefty sitting out today will be MJ Melendez, who TRULY struggles against same-side pitchers. Interestingly, even Paul DeJong will sit in order to allow Michael Massey to play against the left-hander. Either Quartraro has decided that it’s better to put his best hitters in the lineup even against a left-handed pitcher or he checked - as I just did - and realized Suárez doesn’t have much of a split advantage versus same-side hitters and decided to just go with it. Suárez strikes out more and walks fewer lefties, but allows more hits and more extra-base hits to the lefties, leading to a worse OPS against and FIP.

Singer has struggled badly against lefties this year and those struggles don’t seem likely to improve tonight against a lineup that features Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper, Bryson Stott, and Brandon Marsh. It’s not like the righties are a walk in the park, either. If the Royals hope to win tonight, Singer is going to have to avoid getting blown up by the lefties but not let up versus the righties either. It’s a tall order, for sure, but it's one of those things you’d hope a playoff-caliber starting pitcher can do.