The Kansas City Royals take on the Texas Rangers tonight at Kauffman Stadium. This is a big opportunity for the home side, who have a chance to secure a series victory in this four-game set after taking each of the first two contests.
The Royals will start Noah Cameron. Cameron has been as effective as anybody could have hoped in his rookie season, posting a 2.47 ERA across 17 starts. His peripherals aren’t as impressive with a pedestrian 19.7% strikeout rate, and his .239 BABIP and 86% strand rate seem
unlikely to hold up. That said, he’s limited hard contact and thrown plenty of strikes with his deep arsenal. Cameron has never faced Texas.
The Rangers were originally slated to start Jacob deGrom, but he was scratched with an injury. They will instead start Caleb Boushley. Boushley has not made a start in 23 big league appearances. While he has started games in the minors, this seems like more of an opener/bullpen game situation. The 31-year-old is a kitchen sink righty with decent command of six pitches but underwhelming stuff. I won’t be too hard on the guy as he has carved the Royals in two appearances this season, one of which came two days ago: 13 batters faced, five strikeouts, zero baserunners.
There are far fewer moving parts in the lineup now than earlier in the season. In fact, they ran this exact same defensive alignment in last Wednesday’s game (sans the starting pitcher).
First pitch: 6:40 pm CDT
