Kansas City » Chris Sale

Series Preview: Royals vs. Boston Red Sox, July 6-8

David Lesky — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 15:00:18 +0000

The Royals continue their run at history as they welcome in the Boston Red Sox for a three-game weekend set. The Red Sox have the best record in baseball, so if you’re a fan of watching a good team, this would be the weekend to head out to the park. Offensively, the Red Sox do everything well. They hit for a high average, lots of power, they get on base and they steal bases with very good efficiency. They’re not quite as balanced from top to bottom in their lineup as a team like the Yankees or Astros, but their starts – J.D. Martinez and Mookie Betts – make up for it with excellent contributions from others. Their starting staff isn’t quite as dominant, but they do have a dominant piece in Chris Sale. And their bullpen gets the job done as well. This is a really complete team.

Red Sox Vitals

Record	59-29, 1^st Place, AL East
Team TAv	.275
Team SP DRA	4.07
Team RP DRA	3.90
Team WARP Leader	Mookie Betts, 4.9
Record vs. Royals	2-1

Royals vs. Red Sox

Offense

Pitching

Red Sox Projected Lineup

	AVG	OBP	SLG	TAv	WARP
Mookie Betts	.338	.432	.669	.370	4.9
Andrew Benintendi	.279	.362	.492	.291	2.5
J.D. Martinez	.327	.392	.642	.349	3.5
Mitch Moreland	.288	.354	.533	.301	1.1
Xander Bogaerts	.276	.341	.504	.294	2.4
Eduardo Nunez	.257	.289	.373	.238	-0.3
Rafael Devers	.245	.289	.436	.252	1.9
Christian Vazquez	.212	.249	.300	.198	0.0
Jackie Bradley, Jr.	.202	.296	.332	.232	0.2

Projected Pitching Matchups

Friday

	G	IP	W	L	ERA	DRA	WARP
Chris Sale	18	116.0	8	4	2.41	2.09	4.2
Jason Hammel	17	100.1	2	10	5.56	6.32	-1.3

I’ve been wrong before, but I think this Sale guy might be the real deal. What is there to say about him that hasn’t already been said by a million different people. He doesn’t give up hits, he doesn’t walk batters, he strikes out a ton, he gets deep into games. He’s basically the perfect pitcher and he kind of seems to be getting better as his career goes on. It’s amazing to me that we don’t hear his name mentioned in the best pitcher in baseball talk. I don’t think he is, but he’s a name that I feel like just gets forgotten. He’s retired 44 batters since he last allowed a run and his last outing was a seven inning tilt against the powerful Yankees in New York when he allowed just one hit and one walk over seven innings. He’s allowed more than three runs twice this season and that was in back to back starts on May 27 and June 1. Lefties are hitting a gentleman’s .176/.243/.221 against him. Righties aren’t much better, but they are better. Normally I’d mention that the Royals have actually gotten their hits against Sale in his career, but this is a different team on a very downward path. That said, I will tell you that Alcides Escobar is a .333/.364/.417 hitter against him and he, Jorge Bonifacio, Mike Moustakas and Salvador Perez have all homered against him.

There was a time when it looked like Hammel had maybe figured something out. That time is now over. He’s allowed 19 runs (16 earned) in his last 15.2 innings with nine walks and 11 strikeouts and a ridiculous 28 hits allowed. That’s near impossible, or at least it should be. The one good thing he’s still doing is limiting home runs with just 11 allowed this season, which is actually pretty good. The Statcast data tells more of the story. His average exit velocity allowed is 89.3 MPH. He’s allowed 40.4 percent of balls to be hit 95 MPH or harder. Righties have mauled him this season with a .342/.377/.502 line, so I imagine we’ll be seeing J.D. Martinez trotting at least once in this game. I guess the upside is that he’s been okay at home with just nine walks allowed in 43.2 innings and three home runs. So maybe he’ll randomly throw a good game.

Saturday

	G	IP	W	L	ERA	DRA	WARP
David Price	17	96.2	9	6	4.28	4.60	0.7
Brad Keller	27	56.0	2	3	2.09	5.15	-0.1

Price was rolling along and having a perfectly respectable season until he pitched in Yankee Stadium last weekend. After a rough start to the season, Price had posted a very good 2.72 ERA in his previous nine starts, striking out a batter per inning, not allowing many home runs and generally looking like something close to a $30 million per year pitcher. His last start undid all that. Honestly, the stuff is all good. His fastball is 93-94. His sinker the same. His changeup continues to be very good. An issue he’s having is that his cutter is getting hit hard, accounting for seven of the 15 home runs he’s allowed. Price has very good control and throws a lot of first pitch strikes. This strategy can backfire, but swinging early can be very good against him as opponents are hitting .378 with an .800 SLG on the first pitch this season. It’s generally pretty easy to see if he’s going to have it or not in a game. If he settles in and sees a lineup a third time, he’s likely not giving anything up. He has allowed 12 runs in the first and 35 of the 45 runs he’s allowed in the first four innings of games. Perez has hit well against him with three home runs in 21 plate appearances against him. Moustakas has a home run as well in 13 plate appearances.

The beacon of light in the 2018 season is the Rule 5 pick nobody figured would succeed. Keller has given a reason to watch the Royals in his last couple starts, which have been very, very good, although he has a 1-1 record despite 15 innings with eight hits allowed and just two walks with one run allowed. He still has a swing and miss issue, but as long as he’s allowing the type of weak contact he has, it can be overcome. Opponents are hitting just .206 on the ground balls allowed, which is well below the league average, so he’s doing something right there. I’d really love to see more swings and misses, and against this Red Sox team, the inability to get that can be a big problem because they have some really good pure hitters on their roster. If he has a bad start in this one, I don’t think it really means anything, but another excellent start will get me very excited about Keller’s future. He actually faced the Red Sox on back to back days when the Royals were in Boston in May, going 2 innings with no base runners allowed and one strikeout. All the outs were, not surprisingly, on the ground.

Sunday

	G	IP	W	L	ERA	DRA	WARP
Rick Porcello	18	111.0	10	3	3.57	4.12	1.4
Jakob Junis	17	101.2	5	10	5.13	5.78	-0.7

Porcello has had such a strange career. He was one of the best pitchers in the 2007 draft and kind of forced his way to the bottom of the first round because of signing demands. Then the Tigers rushed him to the big leagues and I thought ruined him. Even with a solid ERA in his rookie season, he just wasn’t very good for the first four or five years of his career. Then he had a solid season and got traded to Boston where he posted his best strikeout rate and second best walk rate but was terrible. Then the next year he won the Cy Young. Then last year, he was average at best. Now this year, he’s good again. Oh yeah, and he started striking guys out too. I don’t get it and I don’t pretend to get it. He throws a lot of sinkers and a lot of sliders and both those pitches are very good. Where he gets in trouble is with his curve, which he’s allowed a .344 average and .500 SLG on. His four seam fastball hasn’t been great for him either with a .226 ISO allowed. Unlike Price, Porcello has a bit more of a traditional split, pitching quite well the first two times through the order before struggling a bit when seeing a lineup beyond that. He’s allowed a .260/.319/.423 line the third time through, but given that the Royals offense hasn’t made an adjustment since sometime in 2016, I don’t think it’ll be an issue in this one. He’s 8-8 with a 4.71 ERA in 22 career starts against the Royals. He’s allowed 150 hits in 130 innings with just 80 strikeouts against Kansas City. I expect those numbers to improve in this game.

Ned Yost says the issue for Junis is purely mechanical and should be an easy fix. So why hasn’t it been made yet? This isn’t a two start issue. In his last seven starts, Junis is 0-7 with a 7.59 ERA in 40.1 innings. He’s allowed 35 runs (34 earned), walked 15 and allowed a ridiculous 13 home runs. That’s a pace of nearly 65 over 200 innings. We’ve talked about how he just lives in the strike zone too much. Ned mentioned how he was spinning his slider too much. At some point, an adjustment needs to be made. Junis is better than this, but if he doesn’t show it, it won’t matter what the true talent is. Way back when we were still excited about him, he had a nice start against Boston, allowing just two runs in six innings without his best stuff. He followed that up with a solid start against the Tigers before things started to go south. He’s limited this lineup before. He needs to do it again and get back on track or he might be spending a little time in Omaha.

The Royals stink out loud. I’m not predicting anything but the Royals getting swept until they win a series.

Series Preview: Royals at Boston Red Sox, April 30-May 2

David Lesky — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 15:00:30 +0000

The Red Sox just ended the eight-game winning streak against the Rays and now have to take on the red-hot (for them) Royals who are the winners of a whopping two in a row. The Red Sox can score with the best of them and they can pitch with the best of them. It’s no wonder they’re sitting with the best record in baseball as the first month comes to a close. The good news for the Royals is that Mookie Betts is currently day-to-day with some hamstring issues, so if he sits at all, that’s helpful. Even without him, though, they have plenty of fire power. They’re incredibly lefty heavy in the rotation, so expect to see the Royals rely on their righties in the lineup this series to get the job done.

Red Sox Vitals

Record	20-7, 1^st Place, AL East
Team TAv	.274
Team SP DRA	3.96
Team RP DRA	3.88
Team WARP Leader	Mookie Betts, 1.6
2017 Record vs. Royals	2-4

Royals vs. Red Sox

Offense

Pitching

Red Sox Projected Lineup

	AVG	OBP	SLG	TAv	WARP
Mookie Betts	.344	.439	.733	.381	1.6
Andrew Benintendi	.242	.358	.396	.267	0.2
Hanley Ramirez	.326	.400	.467	.310	0.6
J.D. Martinez	.330	.374	.567	.333	1.1
Xander Bogaerts	.391	.408	.696	.371	0.9
Rafael Devers	.267	.321	.446	.261	0.5
Eduardo Nunez	.239	.278	.380	.227	-0.2
Jackie Bradley, Jr.	.202	.292	.321	.219	0.0
Christian Vazquez	.183	.247	.239	.181	-0.3

Pitching Matchups

Monday

	G	IP	W	L	ERA	DRA	WARP
Jason Hammel	5	32.0	0	2	3.38	5.10	0.1
Eduardo Rodriguez	4	22.1	3	0	3.63	2.63	0.7

It sure seems like we’ve been waiting for quite awhile for Rodriguez to break out, which makes it easy to forget he’s only 25 years old. This season has been a mixed bag for him. The numbers are obviously very good, but he’s also only thrown 22.1 innings in four starts, so he isn’t giving a ton of innings. That isn’t a huge deal with the rest of the rotation and their bullpen, but it’s still something he can improve on. It’s also partially because of a bad first start against the Rays about three weeks ago, so maybe I should hold off on the criticism. Rodriguez has used his fastball a little less this season than his career numbers, and the velocity is down a bit too. He’s using his changeup and slider a lot and while the fastball has been fantastic with a .175 average allowed so far, the changeup has been great too, helping to limit extra base hits. He’s also been dynamite against lefties, though the sample is small. They’re 0 for 9 with eight strikeouts against him, so I’m not sure if it’s wise to expect much from Mike Moustakas, Jon Jay or Alex Gordon in this one and Lucas Duda probably shouldn’t even be given a shot to see what he can do.

Hammel has, overall, been really good this year, and a big reason is that he’s started getting way more ground balls, which should help him a little bit in this one. But even with that, he’s striking out less than five per nine and only has a 9 percent swinging strike rate, which is a recipe for disaster against a good lineup in a bandbox park like Fenway is. If you’re betting on Hammel having his first true blowup start of the year, I’d say this is the safe bet. And we can’t talk about Hammel without mentioning his third time through the order issues. This year there aren’t any, but if the Royals operate as if there won’t be, they’re playing with some serious fire. He hasn’t faced a lot of the Red Sox hitters much in his career, but Ramirez is hitting .474/.500/.684 in 20 career plate appearances.

Tuesday

	G	IP	W	L	ERA	DRA	WARP
Jakob Junis	5	32.1	3	2	3.34	5.35	0.0
Chris Sale	6	35.0	2	1	2.31	2.28	1.2

I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but I’m willing to declare that Sale is good. What is there to say about Sale that hasn’t been said? He gives innings, he strikes a ton of guys out, he doesn’t walk hitters and he doesn’t give up hits. The guy is 6’6” with a crazy difficult to pick up delivery and a great slider. This year, the fastball velocity is a little bit down, but you always wonder with him if that’s by design to try to keep himself fresher for the postseason. Even so, it’s still 93-94, and at that angle, it seems a lot faster. He has allowed three home runs on it and a .226 ISO, so maybe it’s starting to get a little more hittable as he gets older. He’s still struck out 27 batters with it in 62 at bats that ended on it, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves and say it’s anything but great. Unlike Rodriguez, lefties can make contact against him with a .250 average, though in just 17 plate appearances. He’s thrown more innings against the Royals than any other team (by 1/3 of an inning) and is 10-10 with a 2.99 ERA in 162.2 innings. The Royals have hit him at times, but this is a different team, so that might not necessarily tell us much.

Junis is coming off an absolute disaster against the White Sox when he allowed a franchise record tying five home runs. Home runs are kind of the story of his season in his five starts. In the three starts he hasn’t allowed one, he’s 3-0 with a 0.82 ERA. In the two starts he’s allowed them (eight total), he’s 0-2 with an 8.71 ERA. I imagine at some point he’ll pitch well in a start he allows a home run, but given the ballpark he’ll be in, that has to be a bit of a concern. This is his first career start against the Red Sox and their powerful lineup, but he has faced J.D. Martinez a few times and has held him to one single, so that’s something. The big concern for me with Junis in this one is if he doesn’t have his best slider, he’ll be in trouble because the Red Sox as a team actually do pretty well with sliders. If he’s on, it won’t matter because his stuff is that good, but he can’t be anything but nearly 100 percent on.

Wednesday

	G	IP	W	L	ERA	DRA	WARP
Danny Duffy	6	31.2	0	3	5.40	6.82	-0.5
Drew Pomeranz	2	8.2	0	1	7.27	6.05	-0.1

It sure seems like Pomeranz is hurt a lot, but he has made at least 30 starts in each of the last two seasons, so that’s a bit surprising to me anyway. He started the year on the disabled list this year and made his debut in Oakland about a week and a half ago. Both starts have been pretty rough and he was bit by the home run ball in his second start against the Rays. It’s interesting to me that he had a reverse split last year given that he has similar size to Sale, which should give trouble to lefty hitters. He also isn’t much of a bet to go deep in the game, so if the Royals hitters can at least foul some pitches off, they’ll be done with him and on to the bullpen fairly early. Last year, he only pitched even into the seventh inning 10 times and never got past it. All that said he pitched quite well last year against the Royals in the two starts he made against them, though he didn’t get a decision in either.

Duffy is kind of at a season crossroads here after another rough start, but at least he went six innings for just the second time on the season. The good news from the last two starts is that his walk issue seems to maybe be under control as he’s allowed just three free passes in his last 10.2 innings, but he’s just been too hittable lately and the Red Sox right-handed pop in a day game might be trouble for him. And in four starts at Fenway, he’s gone 0-3 with a 7.97 ERA including allowing three home runs in a game there in 2016. The only Red Sox hitter he has a lot of experience with is Martinez, who he’s held to a .136/.208/.318 line in 24 plate appearances, so at least that’s a good sign. And hey, he had his best game of the year against a solid offense in a hitter’s park in Toronto, so maybe he can repeat that in this one.

The Red Sox are currently the class of the American League (though I still think the Yankees end up on top) and the Royals are currently the dregs of the American League (though I still think the Tigers end up on bottom), so on paper this series is a big time mismatch. On the field, it probably will be too, but you never know, so they’ll still play the series. The way Soler is going right now, I think he might be able to carry the Royals to one victory, so as much as I want to say the Red Sox will sweep this, I think the Royals take one of three.