The Royals did not follow through after that Mariners series to do anything to the Yankees except scare them enough in that series opener to annoy the Yankees into grinding them into the dirt for two straight nights. The Royals don’t have a lot to play for in terms of wins and losses, but if they want to be a good team next year, they’d do well to look for some diamonds in the rough with the rest of their season. That’s going to start with figuring out if Carter Jensen and Jac Caglianone can learn
to hit lefties. Unfortunately, the Royals don’t seem to have figured that out, and one of them is sitting against lefty Mackenzie Gore.
The Rangers made one of the bigger trades this past offseason when they traded for the former Nationals ace. Unfortunately for them, he’s struggled since donning the Rangers colors. In particular, the effectiveness of his slider has diminished quite a bit despite a slight arm-angle change giving him more depth and movement on the pitch even without a change in its spin rate. Laying off of that pitch, as the rest of the league has done, is probably going to be a key for the Royals tonight.
Gore did have one of the best starts of his season last time out against the Angels. In that game he struck out 7, walked 1, and allowed only a single run in 6 innings. He hasn’t faced KC in the regular season in almost exactly 3 years, May 28, 2023. In that game he pitched 7 innings of 1-run ball and struck out 11. It remains one of the best starts of his career. He did face KC twice this spring training. In the first game, he allowed 7 runs in 1.2 innings. In the last, an exhibition matchup in Globe Life Field, he tossed 4 scoreless innings with 3 strikeouts.
Stephen Kolek will take the mound again tonight for KC. His last time out all he did was pitch a complete-game no-hitter. The first for the Royals since 2020. I wouldn’t expect him to manage the same thing tonight, but 6-7 scoreless innings would not be amiss considering how the Royals’ offense has performed on the road this year.
Lineups
As you can see, Carter Jensen is getting the day off. It took until now, but Matt Quatraro is finally trying one of the lineup configurations that seemingly half of Royals Kingdom has been begging for for weeks; Lane Thomas will lead off, and Maikel Garcia will bat third in an attempt to juice the middle of the order. Vinnie Pasquantino is moved down to sixth in the order. Jac Caglianone hit his first two major league home runs in this park, off of two different Rangers lefties, both of whom are still with Texas.
Yes, that is old friend Nicky Lopez batting a gentleman’s .000 in 11 at-bats at the nine slot for the Rangers. Still, they don’t seem to miss Marcus Semien with Nimmo providing good offense in their outfield and Semien completing his fall off of a cliff that he started last year.
A couple of injury updates for you, that I picked up from MLB.com. Matt Strahm seems primed to return to the bullpen by the end of this series when he is first eligible. Kris Bubic is still dealing with arm fatigue and has not resumed throwing off the mound, yet. He’s still expected to return sometime in June.
