The Royals finally came through with a win last night after Kris Bubic absolutely shoved for seven innings and Matt Strahm and Lucas Erceg did their jobs for an inning each. Today would be a really fun day to just absolutely kick some White Sox butt, though. Make us all feel a bit better about the team.
Michael Wacha will be pitching for KC. He’s had a pair of absolutely phenomenal starts to being the season, allowing only a single earned run in 13 innings. The 0.69 ERA is spotless and while it might
be buoyed by a bit of luck – he’s currently sporting a .167 BABIP against – even the underlying stats look a lot like last year when he finished the season with nearly 4 WAR and a perfectly reasonable 3.86 ERA.
Like most Royals pitchers over the past two seasons, Michael Wacha has really enjoyed facing the White Sox. He’s pitched against them 6 times with a 1.58 ERA and 4 times as many strikeouts as walks in 40 innings – that’s closer to 7 than 6 innings a start. Pretty good.
The White Sox will counter with Erick Fedde, who has lost both of his starts to begin the year. He didn’t necessarily pitch poorly against Baltimore or Miami, but he hasn’t gotten any run support when he’s on the mound. If that sort of thing can plague the Royals, it can sure as heck plague other teams.
He made two starts against the Royals in 2024 as a member of the White Sox and allowed 1 run over 10.2 innings while striking out 9 and walking 5. With Atlanta last year, he gave up 4 runs in 4.2 innings while striking out 3 and walking 2. Control issues have plagued him – last year he walked nearly as many batters as he struck out on the season – and this year’s Royals team could be primed to take full advantage of that in a way previous iterations absolutely weren’t.
Lineups
I learned earlier this week that if you look at the inset image in the top right of the Royals’ social media posts about their lineups, they’ll show you which uniform they’re wearing that night. I think they often choose a main image in that uniform, but I guarantee you can tell from that image above. So the Royals will continue celebrating their new City Connect uniforms today. They look really spiffy in action and make me really glad I don’t live close enough to KC to go to games because I am afraid I’d take a trip to the team shop and spend WAY too much money. I looked at the jackets online last night, and fortunately, they don’t have them in my size because they want $210 for those suckers, and I don’t think they’ll take Pop-Tarts.
Anyway, I think I would have preferred Isaac Collins in left field when the pitcher they’re facing demands more patience than ever. Michael Massey, as much as I still think he’s got some value on a big league team, looked pretty awful in left earlier this week. And his walk rate…well, let’s just put it this way. Once upon a time, a Royals outfielder from long ago named Mark Quinn took a walk, and it was considered so rare an occasion that the team shot off fireworks in celebration. Michael Massey’s walk rate is 4.4% and Quinn’s was 4.8%.
But Matt Quatraro knows what’s going on in his clubhouse, and we don’t. There could be any number of reasons for the lineup to be constructed this way that we might never know about. Anything from some soreness after last night’s game to Collins oversleeping.
The White Sox have filled their lineup with lefties to face the right-handed Wacha, with another lefty looming tomorrow. Considering Wacha’s reliance on a changeup and career reverse splits, that could end up being a really bad call. Fingers crossed.
