The 71-69 Royals had a real opportunity to gain ground on their Wild Card foes this past week, but they could not as they lost too many games to the Angels and Tigers. The Mariners were just swept by the Rays and lost 2 of 3 to the Guardians before that. The Rangers lost 2 of 3 to the Diamondbacks. The Rays, however, have won seven games in a row to tie the Royals in the Wild Card standings. The Mariners are still in control of the third Wild Card spot, and now a huge jumble of teams are fighting
them for it instead of just the Royals. It’s a mess.
With that context, the Royals start a three-game weekend home series against the 62-78 Twins. They’ve lost four in a row in a sweep at the hands of the lowly White Sox. The Royals are running out of time to make a push into the third Wild Card spot. They need to sweep this series against a worse team. They cannot accept anything else.
Unfortunately for the Royals, the Twins activated Pablo López from the 60-day IL earlier today and he will start tonight. He hasn’t pitched a game since June 3rd. He has faced the Royals twice this year, allowing only 1 earned run (two total) across 10.1 innings with 11 strikeouts and only one walk. Despite missing three months of the season, López remains number two in fWAR among Twins pitchers. He’s their best pitcher (though yes Joe Ryan is also good). The Royals have to hope for some rust.
Against López, a right-handed pitcher, the Royals have loaded up on lefties in the lineup. The only righties in the lineup are Witt, Garcia, and Perez. Jac Caglianone will make his first start in RF since returning from the IL. I imagine we’ll see plenty of the bench tonight when the Twins go lefty out of the bullpen.
The Royals will start Michael Wacha, who is doing the same stuff he did last year. His ERA, xERA, FIP, etc etc in 2025 are all pretty close to 2024’s values. He’s gonna do the same stuff he’s always done. I’m going to throw out there that he’s 21st among all starters in fWAR (no innings cutoff). Y’all know what he is.
The Twins will have star Byron Buxton playing in this series. He’s missed some time here and there, as he is wont to do, and he’s somehow missed every game against the Royals except two early-April games. He’s in the midst of an excellent season, hitting a career-high 29 home runs on the way to a 139 wRC+. The Royals will need to shut him down to get a sweep.
The game starts at 6:40pm US Central time at Kauffman Stadium. You can watch on FanDuel Sports Network Kansas City or listen on the Royals Radio Network.
Lineups
