In 2014, the Kansas City Royals and Baltimore Orioles met for the opportunity to represent the American League in the World Series. The Royals swept that one, but the Orioles are out for revenge this weekend as they head to Kauffman Stadium for a three-game series. Okay, maybe they’ve gotten over it and don’t necessarily have any ill will against the Royals other than looking for a competitive edge, but sometimes it’s hard to find compelling storylines in April matchups between non-division foes. The Orioles are off to a great start this year and lead the American League East in the early part of the year. Last year the Royals won four of seven from Baltimore and outscored them 45-44. It was close.
The story for the Orioles is power. They hit and they hit and they hit some more. And they score runs with that hitting. Up and down their lineup, they have guys who can beat pitchers with the long ball. It begins with their two stars, Manny Machado and Chris Davis. They get it done in very different ways, but they get it done. Machado is the typical do everything superstar. He’s a great defender at third, he hits for average, he hits for power, he gets on base decently. And he’s young and charismatic. Davis is more of a three true outcomes guy, though that’s selling him a little short. He walks a lot, he strikes out a lot and he hits the ball an incredibly long way. Those two could help make any lineup potent.
But luckily for the Orioles, they have more than those two. Mark Trumbo is off to an incredible start for Baltimore. He’s still not walking much, but he also isn’t striking out inordinately either, so we’ll see if this is the year he puts it all together. We know how much power he has. Adam Jones is back in the Orioles lineup after missing a very little bit of time. I think he’s overrated personally, but that doesn’t mean he still isn’t a very good player. Jonathan Schoop plays a solid second base and has a lot of power. Some other areas of his offensive game leave something to be desired, but he has his positive attributes too. And then there’s Matt Wieters and J.J. Hardy. Both can hit the ball out of the park. Both play great defense. Both have their limitations. But both are solid players.
The offense is rounded out by a Rule 5 pick, Joey Rickard, and Pedro Alvarez. Alvarez was thought to be a shrewd pickup given the ballpark, but he’s struggled mightily in the early going. It’ll be interesting to see how long he keeps his job. Rickard has gotten off to a really great start for the Orioles, but I’m more curious how long he can keep it up. These guys have a tendency to hit well to start and then struggle once the league begins to adjust. It happens. If and when it does, the Orioles have international free agent signee Hyun Soo Kim to take over. Kim looked awful in spring training, struggling to catch up to fastballs, but a clause in his contract basically forced the Orioles to take him north with them, and he’s looked a little better in very limited plate appearances. The bench is rounded out by Ryan Flaherty, a guy who can do about anything moderately decently, Nolan Reimold and Caleb Joseph. I love both of those players. Reimold is off to a great start. Joseph, not so much. This is one heck of an offense.
The question for the Orioles this year was always going to be their starting pitching (sound familiar?). So far, those questions have been for a reason. The rotation just isn’t all that good. It’s led by Chris Tillman, who struggled last year and is off to a rocky start this year. Ubaldo Jimenez has been okay in his first three starts with a lot of strikeouts, but it’s hard to have confidence that lasts. Yovani Gallardo was signed to a big deal late in the offseason, but he’s been every bit as bad as many teams obviously feared he would be. Mike Wright has had a rough first couple of starts as well. And then Vance Worley has made two uninspiring starts as well. Kevin Gausman provides hope for the Orioles, but he’s on the disabled list currently and won’t return during this series at least. He might be back for their next series against the Rays, though.
The bullpen, though? This bullpen is nails. They might approach the Royals in terms of quality, and I’m not kidding. Zach Britton is ridiculously good and underrated. He’s nearly impossible to get a hit off and does it with basically one pitch. Darren O’Day has been one of the best setup men in baseball for a few years now, and that hasn’t changed in the early part of this year. Brad Brach is a guy who can even go more than an inning here and there. He’s really good. Mychal Givens has some ridiculous stuff when he has an idea of where it’s going. Dylan Bundy is the once top prospect who is now in the bullpen. It remains to be seen how good he can be there, but he clearly has the talent to excel. Tyler Wilson and T.J. McFarland round out the bullpen. Both have their upsides and their downsides, but both have a chance to be solid as well. This is a really, really good bullpen.
Friday – Chris Young vs. Yovani Gallardo
When free agency started, the Royals were connected to Gallardo a lot. I wasn’t a fan at the time because I didn’t like his declining peripherals or his declining velocity. It’s only three starts, but he’s looked a lot like the guy I was afraid he might be in 2016. He seems more hittable than in the past and his strikeout rate has continued to decline and that’s with facing two teams who strike out a fair amount. I did concoct a scenario in 2013 where the Royals should have traded Ervin Santana and then turned around and acquired Gallardo to help their 2014 pitching staff when Santana was gone, but that obviously never happened. He had a good year in 2014, though, so there’s that. He’s faced the Royals twice in his career, including once last season. He’s 1-0 with a 1.93 ERA in 14 innings against KC.
Three things to watch for against Gallardo:
- Gallardo’s velocity has been in steady decline over the last few years, but is down a ton in the early part of 2016. His four-seam fastball, which he throws about 20 percent of the time is now averaging just over 88 MPH, down from around 91 MPH last year. He also throws a sinker that’s shown a similar velocity decrease this season. He relies heavily on a slider that he’s throwing about 3.5 miles per hour slower than last year at just under 85 MPH. Amazingly, the fastball has been really successful, but the rest of the pitches have been hit and hit hard.
- This year, Gallardo has been absolutely destroyed in the first inning. Opponents are hitting .462/.471/.615 and have scored four runs in his three starts. That’s noteworthy because it’s half the runs he’s allowed. He really settles down after that, so it’s important to get him early. Gallardo is probably not much more than a five or six inning guy at this point in his career, but if he does get deep into the game and the lineup sees him a third time, I’d bet they could have some success.
- He hasn’t shown much of a platoon split this season with both lefties and righties hitting him decently. The Royals hitter with the most plate appearances against Gallardo is Edinson Volquez, which I don’t think will come into play. He’s really held down a lot of the Royals he’s seen, but Kendrys Morales and Salvador Perez have doubles against him. Of course, so does Chien-Ming Wang, so take that for what it’s worth.
Young has gotten off to a bad start this season and if he doesn’t fix his mechanical issues, it could be bombs away for the Orioles in this one. A lineup that looks to absolutely blast the ball seems like a bad matchup for a guy who is living high in the zone way too much. Of course, Young has surprised us before. His first start last year was against a Tigers offense that looked to pose similar problems and he went five innings without giving up a hit. So I guess you just never know. Young has faced the Orioles five times and started against them in four of them. He’s 2-1 with a 3.52 ERA in 23 innings. Only a few Orioles have seen limited action against Young, but they have a total line of .040/.143/.040 in 29 plate appearances. I don’t mean to be negative, but I have a feeling that goes up in this one.
Saturday – Kris Medlen vs. Vance WorleyTyler Wilson
We all know that Ray Searage works magic with many pitchers. Worley is just one of his many projects who has been wildly successful under his tutelage. Worley had a 3.31 ERA in 182.1 innings with the Pirates the last two seasons, and while his 2014 was way better than his 2015, he still wasn’t too bad last year. This year he’s gotten off to a rocky start, and may not even end up making this start, but he’s the most likely right now. He has never faced the Royals.
Wilson made five starts for the Orioles last season among his nine games. He’s thrown eight very good innings over three appearances out of the bullpen this year, so he gets the start in this one over Worley. He has never been considered a great prospect, but he’s had success throughout the minors, so maybe he’s a guy who will be able to stick as a back of the rotation guy for awhile. Not surprisingly, he has not faced the Royals in his career.
Three things to watch for against Worley:
He’s been a fastball/sinker/slider guy throughout his career, but has really backed off the number of fastballs he’s thrown this season and has worked more heavily with the slider. The fastball comes in around 90 or so and the sinker is just a touch slower than that. The sample is small, but it could be that he’s using the slider more because it’s getting better results.Worley’s first pitch has been picked on a lot in his career, and it’s because he throws a ton of first pitch strikes. When the first pitch leads to a decision in the plate appearance, opponents have a .365/.369/.557 line compared to an overall line of .280/.335/.419. The Royals like to hit early in the count. That could work out well for them in this one.Worley has had next to no platoon split in his career, but last year and in his first two appearances this year, he’s been more effective against righties. The only Royals hitter Worley has faced is Omar Infante, and he’s allowed a .300/.364/.300 line to him.
Three things to watch for against Wilson:
- Wilson is a four-pitch pitcher who won’t wow a scout or an opposing hitter in basically any way. He throws a four-seam fastball an awful lot, and it comes in around 91-92 MPH, but he’s able to get fairly weak contact off it. He also throws a sinker at a similar velocity, a slider and he uses a changeup as well from time to time.
- He uses his sinker and his change a lot more heavily to lefties than righties. While he uses his fastball deep in the count, he really relies on that slider when he gets ahead of hitters, moreso to right-handed bats, but to lefties as well. And it has been a very effective pitch for him, so that would explain some of his early career success.
- Wilson doesn’t have much of a split, but has actually been slightly better against lefties than righties. Given his stuff, though, I think the Royals offense has a real shot to get something going against him. Of course, there is the rookie starter thing that has caused them slight problems in the past.
Kris Medlen has turned in two very fine pitching performances to start his season, making me feel better about being so high on him before the year started. Of course, he does have a problem with the home run ball sometimes, and that’s Baltimore’s specialty, as you may have heard. It’ll be a tough game for Medlen, but he has such good stuff when he’s on and such a good change-up, I think he can neutralize their offense. But he has to have it all working. Medlen has faced the Orioles twice in relief and once as a starter. He owns a career 1-0 record with a 5.25 ERA in those three games. He’s given up a home run to Jones, but hasn’t faced anybody on their roster more than nine times.
Sunday – Yordano Ventura vs. Mike Wright
Wright was never a top prospect for the Orioles, but he was very good in Triple-A for them last year, which led to a call-up that saw him pitch 44.2 innings with an ERA above 6.00. That’s not very good, but the Orioles are hungry for pitching and were hopeful he could have a similar turnaround to the one he did from 2014 to 2015 in Triple-A. So far, that hasn’t happened, but it’s only two starts. He has a 5.73 ERA (but a 4.40 FIP) in just 11 innings so far this season. He has faced the Royals once before, giving up four runs over five innings in a no-decision last season.
Three things to watch for against Wright:
- Wright throws a fastball that straightens out at about 94-95 MPH, and he throws it more than half the time. He does put a little sink on the ball occasionally and when he does so, he takes a couple miles per hour off to mess with the hitter’s timing. He has a slider that’s pretty solid and a changeup that hitters should have no trouble with if they can see it out of his hand.
- Wright is a guy who starts off most at bats with a fastball, so hitters should be prepared for that (as they usually are), but then he attacks different side of the plate hitters differently. Against righties, he uses his slider very heavily. He’s essentially a two-pitch pitcher against them. Against lefties, he relies more on his changeup, but he also mixes in the slider and the sinker, so they have a little more to be prepared for, while the right-handed bats can focus on the two he uses primarily.
- In his career, Wright has been hit hard by everyone, but he’s been especially lit up by lefties, which is good news for the bulk of the Royals power. He’s surrendered two home runs to Lorenzo Cain and a double each to Alcides Escobar and Kendrys Morales. The weather looks like it might be prime for hitting, so the Royals need to make sure they do some damage in this one.
Ventura has been a bit of an enigma this season. He’s striking hitters out just as he did at the end of last season, but he’s also issuing walks far too often. That’s led to high pitch counts and situations where he can’t get deep into games like the Royals need from him. He has shown an ability to escape from trouble, which is something that hurt him last year, but he has to cut down on the free passes in order to get his innings up to where the Royals likely need them to be. One of my favorite Ventura starts of all-time was against the Orioles in 2014. He went eight innings, struck out eight and walked just two without allowing a run. I may never forget that game. In all, he’s 3-1 with a 2.08 ERA in four career starts against Baltimore. In those starts, he’s gone 26 innings and struck out an amazing 33. Jones, Hardy and Machado have all hit him very well, but the rest of the lineup to have faced him has struggled.
I’m not a fan of this match-up. Of course, I also wasn’t a fan of the matchup with the Astros and the Royals won three out of four in that one. I think the Orioles offense is too much for Medlen and Young and the Royals will be put in a situation where they have to avoid the sweep in the Sunday game. I think they do, but I’m going to predict a rough series and the Royals losing two of three to a team that I think will eventually come back to earth, but is playing well right now.