As the season winds down with playoff hopes generally gone, there is still baseball remaining. The 76-77 Royals will host the 89-64 Blue Jays this weekend at Kauffman Stadium for a three-game jaunt. While the Royals do not have much riding on this series, the Blue Jays have the opportunity to secure a favorable playoff position. They are three games ahead of the Yankees and can clinch a lot of things with a good result in this series.
The Royals should not allow that to happen.
The Jays will send Max
Scherzer to the mound. At 41 years old, he is still pumping in 93mph heat but has some issues. His strikeout rate and walk rate are not too bad taken together, and his BABIP is low. It’s low, though, because he’s allowing a ton of fly balls, which means he’s allowing a ton of homers. His HR/9 has never been higher in his career, and his ground ball rate has never been lower. He’s got 79.1 innings pitched this season; among all pitchers with at least 70 innings, Scherzer has the absolute lowest ground ball rate. So even though his HR/FB rate is relatively average-ish, he allows so many homers just because he gets so few grounders. We’ll see some elevation tonight from the Royals offense.
The Royals will send Michael Lorenzen to start. He’s been sputtering as the season comes to a close; his last start was September 12th against Philly (last Friday). He gave up six runs in three innings. He did pitch one inning of relief two games ago against Seattle that likely functioned as just a regular bullpen session. Lorenzen also has a homer problem; he is a fly ball pitcher and has a slightly elevated HR/FB rate. It’s not as bad as Scherzer’s dinger problem though.
With both these guys, we should see a lot of fly balls tonight. Just hoping only one team’s fly balls leave the yard so the home team can get back to .500.
The game starts at 6:40pm US Central. It is a Friday Night Baseball national broadcast. You can watch on Apple TV+ or listen on the Royals Radio Network.
Lineups:
