And they’ve been this underwhelming even while becoming the first team ever to have four pitchers reach the 200 strikeout mark. Their top four starters are top notch, but a struggling bullpen has led to some issues. The potential is there for true greatness with Brad Hand, Andrew Miller and Cody Allen, but it just hasn’t been there due to both injuries and poor performance. It’s worth noting that these four games will be tune-up games for the Indians, so their starters aren’t likely to go deep into games, though I guess you never know.

Indians Vitals

Royals vs. Indians

Offense

Pitching

Indians Projected Lineup

Projected Pitching Matchups

Thursday – 7:15 pm

This was pretty much inevitable for Tomlin at some point and the fact that it has held off this long says a lot about him. He doesn’t have good stuff and spends so much time in the strike zone, so eventually he was going to bitten by the long ball more than he had before and this season he’s allowed 24 homers in just 65.2 innings, a total that might make Chris Young blush (sorry, Chris). He still has phenomenal control, but he’s just not missing nearly enough bats and he’s getting hit awfully hard with a barrel rate of 11 percent, nearly double the MLB average. It’s bad. He’s been in and out of the rotation in September, so he’s only a few days removed from throwing 76 pitches in a game, which means if they decide to go awhile with him, he can probably do it. But that said, do you really want him to? He’s allowed a .365/.412/.738 line to lefties while Ryan O’Hearn has absolutely mauled righties. If you’re picking up what I’m putting down and you play daily fantasy, you’re welcome. Of course if you didn’t already know that, you probably shouldn’t be wasting your money.

Sparkman will get his third career start in place of Jorge Lopez who was shut down after his rib injury and bad start his last time out. I do believe Sparkman can be a worthwhile reliever and am doubtful of him long-term in the rotation, though, so I guess it’s similar to a Lopez start. He relieved Lopez in his last outing, throwing 55 pitches over four innings and generally being okay, though the lack of swings and misses has me concerned about his future in any role. Still, it’s nice to see the mid-90s fastball and you’d think a secondary pitch could emerge that we just haven’t seen yet from him in the big leagues. This will be his first time going against Cleveland, so it’ll be a nice test for him even if he does only get bits and pieces of the regular lineup.

Friday – 7:15 pm

I feel like a lot of people are surprised at the season Clevinger is having, but if you watched him last year, you shouldn’t be. The stuff plays, and now that he’s got his walk rate under control, it plays even better. He’s deceptive too, which makes him incredibly difficult to hit. So while it’s surprising that he’s gotten to this point, I don’t think it is based on last season. He’s also been hit harder by lefties than righties, though not to the extent of Tomlin. That said, 13 of the 21 homers he’s allowed have been to lefties and 33 of the 58 extra base hits. He’s had some first inning struggles, allowing six home runs and 17 runs in his 31 starts, and the Royals know all about that having scored three in the first against him a few weeks ago at home before getting shut down by him the rest of the way. Including that start, he’s faced the Royals four times this year and gone 2-0 with a 2.33 ERA with just two home runs allowed (to Alex Gordon and Salvador Perez). So my guess here is that the Royals will be happy if they do treat this as a shorter tune-up.

If we’re being honest, I’d have never guessed that Kennedy has thrown more than 100 innings this season. I actually forgot he existed while he was on the disabled list. All that said, it’s hard to argue with the results in his three starts since he’s been back. He’s gone 19 innings, allowed 17 hits, six runs (four earned) with 16 strikeouts and five walks and posted a 1.89 ERA. He’s generally actually been really good. Of course, he’s been facing teams with nothing to play for but the offseason, but still, it’s better to be good in your only sample than bad. He’s faced Cleveland once this year and was outstanding, going six shutout innings and striking out eight to pick up his first win of the season. It was roughly four degrees that day, so that helped, but again, good results are better than bad.

Saturday – 6:15 pm

Kluber probably isn’t going to win another Cy Young, but he definitely belongs in the conversation as he currently leads the American League in innings pitched and has some excellent results. For him, a mid-season funk of sorts probably cost him the award. He went 8-4 with a 3.94 ERA in 15 starts from June 16^th to September 18^th, which bumped his ERA from 2.10 to 2.93. Now, he was outstanding in his last start against the White Sox, going seven shutout inning with 11 strikeouts, but the overall numbers are probably a cut below the other candidates. The question that I think is fair to ask with Kluber is just how worn down he is. Since the start of 2014, he’s thrown 1,127 innings and faced 4,463 batters. That’s a lot. This year against the Royals, he’s 3-1 with a 3.24 ERA in four starts, but he’s been hit hard at Kauffman Stadium where he’s posted a 6.35 ERA and allowed eight runs on 16 hits in 11.1 innings. This game is, in fact, at Kauffman Stadium.

Junis had his first meh start of the year against the Tigers last time out, and it might be part of marring a really strong finish for him after allowing four runs on eight hits in three innings the time out before that one. But no homers allowed is a good thing, given the season he’s had, so he gets one last chance to go into the offseason on a high note. I’ll run the numbers as I do every start for him, but since coming off the DL, he’s gone 3-2 with a 3.38 ERA in 12 starts spanning 69.1 innings with eight home runs allowed. He’s struck out 66 and walked just 14. That’ll play. He’s been hit hard by Cleveland a couple times this year, but his last time out against them earlier this month, he allowed just two hits over seven shutout innings. More of that would be a nice way to finish his year.

Sunday – 2:15 pm

The 2018 season wraps up with the Royals seeing Carlos Carrasco somehow for the first time since April 6^th when he went six innings and gave up two runs on five hits. Now, think back to that time. Giving up two runs against the Royals then was basically like giving up five or six to a real team, so maybe that wasn’t such a great start. Of course, he is a legitimately very good pitcher and has found his way to another fully healthy, very good season. He strikes out a ton of hitters, doesn’t give up a crazy amount of hits and doesn’t walk guys. No, he isn’t an ace, but he’s a heck of a number two. If you’re looking for a weakness, he’s actually been at his worst when he’s first starting a game, though that’s if you can call that his “worst” as he’s given up a .253/.287/.406 line. Still, though, he’s allowed 10 of the 21 homers he’s allowed all season in just 35 percent of the plate appearances. He’s 10-6 with a 3.55 ERA in 23 games against the Royals in his career. Whit Merrifield has really enjoyed hitting against him in 16 plate appearances, putting up a .500/.533/1.000 line. That’ll play.

And the season wraps up with Eric Skoglund throwing the first pitch, so that’s…something. Though I should be fair to say that he’s been really good since he came off the DL and I was actually disappointed that his last start got cut short because of the rain delay in Cincy. In four games, he’s gone 15.1 innings and given up just eight hits and two runs to lower his ERA by 1.3 runs. He’ll be making his third career start against the Indians. The first two were both last year and didn’t go so well. He lasted 3.1 innings combined and allowed 11 runs on 11 hits with three strikeouts and four walks. So yeah. Happy last day of the season!

This is the toughest series of the year to predict because who knows how the Indians are going to play it? Do they want to stay completely fresh and everyone will play or do they want to take the opportunity to rest guys and play their bench a little bit before the postseason? My guess is we don’t see guys for too long unless they need the reps like maybe Josh Donaldson. I’m going to go out on a true limb here and say the Royals take three of four and give us some warm and fuzzy feelings to take into the offseason.

Note: All advanced stats are through Saturday’s action.

Indians Vitals

Royals vs. Indians

Offense

Pitching

Indians Projected Lineup

Projected Pitching Matchups

Monday – 3:10 pm

Plutko has been tasked with replacing Trevor Bauer in the rotation while Bauer recovers from his stress fracture and he’s been fine in two of his three starts, but got roughed up in the other and the Indians have lost all three. Really it’s been a mixed bag as he’s been up and down this year and in and out of the rotation, so it’s hard to say exactly what you’ll get with him. He relies heavily on a nothing special fastball, throwing it more than 60 percent of the time and averaging just about 91-92 MPH on it. His number two is a slider and he mixes in the occasional change and curve. He’s allowed four home runs on his curve out of a total of 10 at bats that ended on it, which isn’t what you’d call ideal. And it’s not like his fastball has some great spin rate or anything. His trouble with lefties gives me a lot of hope for the Royals in this one. He’s allowed a .337/.412/.673 line against them, so I could see Ryan O’Hearn playing pepper with that tall wall in left and Brett Phillips launching one to right and really any of the lefties who are playing well having a field day in this one.

Junis is coming off his first career complete game in an outing that I didn’t expect to go that long. His homerless streak did end in his last start, but his post-DL numbers are very encouraging for his future. In 45.1 innings, he’s struck out 47, walked 12 and allowed three home runs with a 3.12 ERA. That’s some serious quality. Now, some of that is that his complete game was against the Tigers, who he absolutely owns, but you can only beat the teams in front of you. His history against the Indians isn’t what you’d call good. He’s faced them four times and made three starts with an ERA of 8.05 with four home runs allowed in 19 innings. This year has been especially rough, so this’ll be a nice test for him to see if he’s really back on track or if it was a Tigers-induced mirage.

Tuesday – 6:10 pm

The Royals faced Clevinger last week in Kansas City and Salvador Perez hit a monster three-run homer in the first inning, but then they didn’t get anything else off him. That’s actually pretty par for the course for him. He has a 4.67 ERA in the first and has allowed five home runs in 27 games before generally settling down as the game progresses. He’s been good everywhere, but he’s been a little less good at home this season with a  3.44 ERA compared to 2.88 on the road. He’s just a little more hittable at Progressive Field and interestingly just throws more strikes in general there, walking batters at a significantly lower clip. No Royals have hit him well, even Perez with that massive home run, though O’Hearn did go 1-for-3 against him last week, so maybe he’ll be the Royals player to actually hit Clevinger well.

Duffy has now made two starts since his brief DL stint and has been generally pretty good, going 11 innings with 13 strikeouts, five walks and a 2.45 ERA. Some areas of concern for me include his velocity, which topped out at just 93.7 in his last start after hitting near 97 earlier in the season. This is exactly what plagued him earlier in the year when his shoulder was in question, so I think it’s fair to wonder. Another issue has been a ton of pitches, 199 in fact, to average 18 per inning. Then add in very few swings and misses (a 7.5 percent rate), and there’s definitely reason to be worried. The Indians have been a big problem for him this year. He’s 0-3 with a 10.80 ERA in three starts and has walked 10 while striking out just eight in 15 innings. I don’t have high hopes here, but if he can pitch well, it’ll make me feel a lot better about him.

Wednesday – 12:10 pm

Kluber bounced back big time in his last start against the Rays, going seven shutout innings. But even with that start, he’s been somewhat ordinary over his last 12 starts, going 6-4 with a 3.84 ERA and striking out just 67 in 75 innings, which is very low for him. Also, the 75 hits allowed in that time is quite a few. That a stretch like that is considered a big slump for him says so much about how good he is, but they’ll need him to be vintage Kluber to make it through the postseason. He’s actually been just okay in each of his last two starts against the Royals with a total of 11.1 innings thrown, 16 hits allowed and eight runs. An odd issue he’s facing this year is with runners in scoring position where he’s allowed a .277 average and .485 slugging percentage. Even with that, his strand rate is still 78 percent, so you might be able to make an argument that there’s some regression coming for him, which isn’t something Indians fans want to hear. It’s hard to say that because he’s so good that you expect him to defy the numbers, but hey, you never know.

Keller just continues to roll along and pitch beyond his years. Sure it was the Orioles, but he just went eight innings for the second time in his career and has now thrown 50 innings since the break with a 3.42 ERA and 40 strikeouts. He threw a career-high 114 pitches in that last start, so I wouldn’t be too surprised if Keller is somewhat limited in this one just to be safe. With the Omaha season over by the time this is played, the pitching staff will have plenty of reinforcements in the way of call-ups, so I would expect we might only see five innings of Keller in this one. Of course, that’s all we got from him against Cleveland in Kansas City on the home stand, but it took him 96 pitches to get there. Still, he pitched well, allowing just two runs and striking out five.

The Royals are going well, but the Indians are still the considerably better team and they’re trying to get ramped up right now. I think the Indians take two of three, but the young guys are still fun to see.

As you know, the Royals haven’t exactly had the best season in 2018. They don’t score runs and they allow too many. It’s sort of a recipe for disaster. So which players are the Royals helping the most this season? Let’s take a gander.

Shin-Soo Choo

After another huge game against the Royals last night, Choo has continued his assault on Royals pitching. A big factor in his resurgence has been the fact that he’s absolutely destroyed the Royals.

Matt Davidson

And now it’s time for the obvious. If the Royals had played the White Sox as few times as they’ve played the Twins, Davidson might have been designated for assignment. But they haven’t and he isn’t. Here are the numbers:

Adam Engel

Sticking with the White Sox, Engel has proven to be, we’ll say, less than as a hitter in the big leagues. But don’t tell Royals pitching that. He’s somehow carved up the Royals. With him, I’m going to show how he’s done this season against the Royals:

But also his career numbers, which are really just this year and last year. It’s not so much that he was actually that great against the Royals last year, but he’s just SO bad against everyone else:

Marwin Gonzalez

Gonzalez was a huge piece of the 2017 championship run for the Astros, but this season hasn’t exactly gotten off to a great start. He’s not a liability necessarily because he can play multiple positions, but he just hasn’t been exceptional for them. We’ll see if this weekend was a blip or if the Royals are responsible for getting him going.

Francisco Lindor

Lindor is a heck of a player and is an All-Star no matter how many time he faces the Royals, but the numbers are just so jarring that I had to include him in this list. The 26 plate appearances against the Royals raise his average by 15 points, his OBP by 17 and his SLG by 33. That’s impressive.

Yoan Moncada

Do you sense a bit of a theme here? The White Sox are not good, but boy do they love seeing the Royals. Moncada is insanely talented, but he hasn’t shown a ton in the big leagues to this point. That doesn’t mean he won’t, but let’s just say he’s very thankful for the Royals this season.

Matt Olson

Olson had one fantastic rookie year for Oakland in 2017 hitting 24 home runs in just 59 games. He looked the part of a big time slugger for years to come. And even this season when he’s struggled, he’s absolutely mauled some home runs, routinely going 450+. Against the Royals, though, it’s been a different level for him.

Albert Pujols

Man he’s had a great career, and he’s punished the team that played mere miles from where he played college ball. This year is no different. As The Machine is no longer capable of much, he continues to make the Royals miserable.

Justin Upton

Upton has been a very good player for the vast majority of his career and after a nice half-season with the Angels, he signed a new deal with them rather than opting out of the deal he signed with the Tigers. Things haven’t gone well for him on his new deal…other than when the Angels take on the Royals.

There are others that maybe aren’t quite as dramatic. And yes, there are actually some who the Royals have handled so well that they actually make their overall numbers worse. Jose Abreu is the rare example of a White Sox player who hasn’t benefited greatly from facing Royals pitching. He’s hit .284/.339/.504 this season but just .174/.321/.348 against the Royals. Every team has those players who are just thorns in their sides throughout the season. Bad teams with bad pitching tend to have more. There’s still plenty of baseball left to add to this list too, so watch out for more batters to be Raised Royal as 2018 goes on.