Note: All advanced stats through action on Tuesday.

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Thursday – 7:15 pm

A quick look at the ERA and DRA difference for Gonsalves shows he’s been a little unlucky in his 12.1 innings at the big league level. Okay fine, so he’s been terrible either way. The royals had their way with him in Minnesota, but unfortunately his opponent then and in this one couldn’t hold a big lead after the Royals got to him in the third. In his big league career, he’s walked 13 and struck out six. I don’t care if you have talent, that doesn’t play. The sample is obviously tiny, but in 16 plate appearances against lefties, he’s allowed a ridiculous .429 ISO. Righties have hit him hard too, but yikes. The stuff just isn’t there for him. He throws his midding fastball a lot and of his secondary pitches, only his slider has been even close to being worth a damn. He didn’t last long last week, so nobody has more than two plate appearances against him, but the hits came from Jorge Bonifacio, Adalberto Modnesi, Alex Gordon and Whit Merrifield. I sort of have a hunch that if Hunter Dozier plays, he’ll have a big game against Gonsalves too.

Fillmyer continues to never allow me to either buy in or sell on him. For the second time in just 10 starts, he was given a big lead that he coughed up relatively quickly. This time, the Royals plated six in the third against these very same Twins and he promptly gave up four and couldn’t escape the third. It was reminiscent of his start against the White Sox where he had a 6-0 lead and couldn’t get out of the fourth before giving that up. The Twins have proven to be a struggle for him with nine runs allowed in just 5.1 innings. Luckily this game is in the comfort of Kauffman Stadium where he’s 2-1 with a 2.54 ERA in seven games and has allowed just 31 hits in 39 innings and only two home runs. Maybe that’ll help him get over the hump against the Twins.

Friday – 7:15 pm

The Royals just saw Berrios a few days ago and he was very good, going six innings and allowing just a run on three hits. Expect to see Alcides Escobar in this one as his .353/.353/.706 line against him will make him a must-start for the Royals…for some reason. Berrios has continued his success against the Royals this year after struggling his first two seasons. He’s now 2-1 with a 1.80 ERA in three starts this year. His last bad start against the Royals was July 1^st last year, so maybe he’s due.

Lopez gets to make his next start following his near-perfect game against the team he almost threw it against. He was magnificent last week against the Twins, obviously, and following that game was one of the greatest highlights of a terrible season. I’ve long been a believer that Lopez is a reliever long-term, as I’ve said before, but he seems to be doing everything he can in his last two starts to get me to change my mind. The big thing for me in the past has been that he just begins to struggle a bit at 50 pitches or so. In his last two starts, opponents have hit .174/.208/.174 against him after the 50^th pitch. Sure that’s arbitrary and it’s a small sample, but it’s encouraging. Now let’s see him do it again.

Saturday – 6:15 pm

De Jong had his first start since last season against the Royals last weekend and looked pretty good, giving up just one hit in four innings, though he walked four. He uses a four-seam fastball that doesn’t have much zip quite often and then mixes in a slider and changeup, both of which were quite effective against the Royals last week. The sample is tiny, but his fastball has been hit around in his career, so if he lives on that too much, a young lineup like the Royals that hunts mediocre fastballs should be able to do some damage. He’s allowed a .300/.394/.483 line to lefties in his career, which seems to be a good sign for guys like Ryan O’Hearn, Alex Gordon, Brian Goodwin and Adalberto Mondesi.

Like it or not, Kennedy is signed up for two more years and will at least be part of the rotation to start next season, so his performance against the Twins on Sunday was really encouraging. I loved the six innings with one run on four hits, but I really loved 14 swinging strikes in just 93 pitches. His fastball, which is so important, was absolutely outstanding. If he’s going to provide value again, he’s going to need that fastball to be doing its thing.

Sunday – 1:15 pm

It’s been a nice season for Gibson with the most strikeouts of his career while his walk rate has remained mostly steady. Between the extra swings and misses and the lack of hits allowed, he’s looking like he might have made some sustainable changes to keep him as a solid number three starter for the next couple years at least. If we’re being honest, given his affordable salary and inconsistent track record, the Twins would probably be wise to shop him this offseason. Gibson has been dynamite when ahead in the count, allowing just a .168/.176/.284 line to opponents with just 12 extra base hits in 194 plate appearances. If you’re looking for a reason to not believe, he’s allowed a .244/.332/.420 line with the bases empty and .191/.258/.255 with runners in scoring position. That bases empty line is pretty much in line with what he’s allowed on the whole in his career, so there’s a decent bet that’s who he is and he’s had some strand luck. I guess we’ll see next year if it can carry over.

Junis is going to earn himself a reputation as a second half master. In 123.2 innings after the break in his young career, he’s 10-3 with a 3.20 ERA. This year, he’s 3-2 with a 2.83 ERA since coming off the DL, which also coincides with the break ending. The 58 strikeouts and 12 walks in 60.1 innings are really encouraging and he’s now gone four straight starts without issuing a walk, with the streak reaching 116 batters. That’s pretty good. He’s been a horse in his last three starts too, going 24 innings with 15 hits allowed and 18 strikeouts. The home runs crept back in a little bit in his last start with two in the third, so that’s something to keep an eye on, but he’s just been so good recently that we’re back to anxiously awaiting each Junis start.

Four game sets are often split, and four-game sets between two teams with nothing to play for probably are even more so (don’t look that up). So yeah, I’ll say a split. I know, I know…boring.

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Friday – 7:10 pm

Gonsalves came into the season as one of the top 100 prospects in baseball according to both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline and had a really nice minor league season, posting a 2.76 ERA in 23 games and 120.2 innings with just 76 hits allowed. The big leagues have been a bit less kind to him as he’s allowed 19 hits and 10 walks in 10 innings while striking out just five. He’s a big guy, standing at 6’5”, but isn’t really a power arm with his changeup leading the way for him. His fastball is low-90s and his breaking stuff has a chance to be good someday. The control issues are curious and might just be a bit of nerves combined with maybe some fatigue as he’s now thrown 21 more innings than last season, though it’s not a career high for him, so who knows really? As a big leaguer, the sample is miniscule, but he hasn’t been able to get out lefties or righties with a .333/.429/.750 line allowed to lefties and .429/.545/.600 to righties. He had a reverse split in the minors this season, which is often a result of the changeup being the best pitch since they don’t throw it left on left as much.

Fillmyer just keeps sucking me back in. After he imploded against the White Sox a couple weeks ago and lost a six-run lead, I figured that was it. Then he went out and threw 13 innings in his last two starts with three runs allowed and a 3:1 strikeout to walk ratio. Yes, one of those starts was against the Orioles, and yes there are still underlying issues with Fillmyer, but I’ll repeat what I’ve said a million times this year. Why not see what he is? He started against the Twins in Minnesota at the beginning of August and lasted just three innings during that weird rain delay game and was hit fairly hard and only had four swinging strikes in 70 pitches. He’ll need to be better in this one for the Royals to get a win, even if the offense supports him.

Saturday – 6:10 pm

I mentioned Berrios has been disappointing, which seems odd to say for a guy who is having a solid enough season, but after last year’s step forward, it really just seemed like another one was coming and it hasn’t. He has increased his strikeout rate and decreased his walk rate, so that part is good, but he’s also been more homer prone this season, which has given back some of the gains from the better strikeout and walk numbers. Really he’s just giving up a little more hard contact in general, and for a pitcher with the stuff he has, you wouldn’t expect that. Still, his curve is outstanding and has been even better this year than last, and when his fastball is on, he can be nearly unhittable with those two pitches. And, like Gonslaves, his changeup is a plus pitch as well, so really you’re talking about a guy who should be an ace, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the breakout was just delayed a year and he’s incredible next season. He has a 4.99 ERA in seven career starts against the Royals, but a lot of that was damage done during his terrible rookie season and last year. This year, he’s 2-0 with a 1.93 ERA in two starts with 14 strikeouts in 14 innings.

Again, the Orioles caveat applies here, but Lopez had the best start of his career his last time out, going seven innings and allowing just a run on five hits with eight strikeouts and no walks. He had 14 swinging strikes in 99 pitches, which is truly amazing, and very encouraging no matter who he was facing. I think his curve was talked up quite a bit, but his slider was insane last week with six whiffs out of 17 pitches and outs were recorded on all four put in play. If he can bring that slider and that curve to this game, he’ll be just fine against the Twins. Personally, I still have my doubts that he’s a starter in the long run, but please refer to Fillmyer, Heath regarding why not. In his career as a starter, he’s held opponents to a .220/.278/.320 line the first time through before that balloons to .413/.500/.543 the second time. The sample is tiny, but it’s a trend that isn’t promising. But again, let’s see if he can do it again against a team not as bad as the Orioles, but certainly not good.

Sunday – 1:10 pm

After back-to-back matching 5.07 ERAs for Gibson, he’s finally doing what he did in 2015 for the Twins, just in time for his final year of arbitration before free agency. The biggest difference is that he’s just getting more strikeouts and more swings and misses in general. How has he gotten there? His slider has always been a great swing and miss pitch, but it’s been even better this year, so that’s one. Another is that his curve has been outstanding for whiffs with a 47.3 percent whiff rate, compared to 36 percent last year. And with that, I think his changeup has played up too and he’s allowed a .114 average on it, compared to .271 last season. He still throws his sinker quite a bit to get those worm burners, but the swings and misses have made him a truly different pitcher. And the Royals have seen quite a bit of him over the years. This will be his 18^th start against Kansas City, and it seems like he’s almost always annoyingly good with a 3.40 ERA in 106 innings. This year has been more of the same. In 12.1 innings, he’s struck out 13 Royals, walked three and posted a 2.92 ERA. Alex Gordon has done well against him, and Hunter Dozier has two doubles in seven at bats against him, which isn’t a sample worth noting other than the fact that Dozier has been a doubles machine lately, so maybe he can carry that over.

Junis is on one now and looking like the guy we were so excited about in spring training and earlier this year. With seven two-hit, shutout innings against the Indians (with no walks, I might add), he’s padded his post-DL stats some more now having gone 52.1 innings in nine starts with 49 hits allowed, 53 strikeouts and a 2.75 ERA. The six unearned runs still loom, but even adding those in, he’s still at just a 3.78 RA, which is perfectly acceptable. I’ll say again what I’ve said a few times since his DL stint as well. With just three home runs allowed, it maybe does lend some credence to the idea that his back was a bigger problem than we originally thought. He’s faced the Twins twice this year and once since coming off the disabled list (his first start off). He’s gone 10 innings, allowed four runs on 10 hits with 13 strikeouts and five walks. He was solid against them last year too, so maybe this is just a good matchup for him.

The Twins are looking to next season and maybe they’re just figuring out a way to get through the season with some of the Rays “opener” strategy or maybe they’re looking to next season, but either way, it’s at least interesting. Hopefully, Salvador Perez can come back for this series given his crazy numbers at Target Field. If he does, I say they win two of three. If not, I say they win two of three.

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Friday – 7:15 pm

Gibson putting it together is simultaneously shocking and expected because the stuff has always been there and also the way he’s handled the Royals in his career has made us believe he was actually never bad. But even so, he’s striking hitters out for the first time in his career, which makes his walk rate that’s a little too high palatable. Add in that he’s been tough to hit and isn’t even giving up much in the way of home runs and he’s pitching like a guy who can actually help a playoff contender if the Twins choose to move him. The tall righty still shows solid velocity at 93-94 on both his four- and two-seamer. His slider has turned into a beast of a pitch, holding opponents to a .118 average and .215 slugging percentage with 49 strikeouts this season in 93 at bats. There is a bit of luck in the profile as he’s been unreal good with runners in scoring position, holding opponents to a .460 OPS compared with .713 with the bases empty. That’s a good sign regression is coming to some extent, but it won’t be enough alone to knock him out of the “good pitcher” category. He’s already thrown seven shutout innings against the Royals once this year, and I bet he’s not afraid to do it again.

Duffy ended the first half in style, throwing 13 consecutive scoreless innings over his final two starts. He struck out 17 and walked five while giving up just 10 hits in those two starts, so he’s on a good run. One of those two starts was against these very Twins and his 11 percent whiff rate was very good in that one. He was up to 14 percent in his last start against the White Sox, so that’s all very encouraging for a strong second half from Duffy. In all, he’s posted a 2.73 ERA in his last 10 starts and has generally looked like the Duffy of old. If he can figure out how to work around Robbie Grossman of all people, he should be okay given his history against Twins hitters. In his last start against the Twins, both his changeup and his curve did the damage for him, so look for those pitches to play a big role in either his success or lack thereof.

Saturday – 6:15 pm

It’s been a weird year for Lynn, as we talked about when he matched up against the Royals before the break, which is actually his last start, 10 days before this one. He started off with a brutal April that saw his ERA over 8.00, but he’s settled down quite a bit since then, going 7-4 with a 4.12 ERA and about a strikeout per inning with his walk rate down enough to be acceptable. The big number for him is that he’s allowed five home runs since April after allowing five in April itself. He went just five innings against the Royals on July 11^th, allowing four runs on five hits and throwing 114 pitches, so pitch efficiency isn’t always his friend. He also allowed two of the five homers he’s allowed since April in this one. His sinker gave him the most trouble, while his four-seam fastball was the best pitch against the Royals, so we’ll see if he throws even more fastballs than he did last week. Mike Moustakas is a career .313 hitter against Lynn with three home runs, including one this season against him.

Junis makes his return to the Royals rotation for this one, after hitting the disabled list for the first time his career with lower back inflammation. It’ll be his first start since July 2 when he gave up nine runs (eight earned) in 5.2 innings against the Indians with two homers allowed and three hit batters. Junis has given up a big league high 24 home runs this year and 12 of them have come in his last five starts spanning just 27 innings. That’s a number that would make Chris Young blush. The hope here obviously is that his back was causing him problems during that stretch because that would at least be a cause for his issues. In three of his last five starts, his slider hasn’t been nearly up to snuff and if he doesn’t have that, he doesn’t have much. His sinker, which looked like a potential second out pitch early in the year has been bad in four of his last five starts. Both those pitches would suffer when the back suffers, so maybe, just maybe. He faced the Twins in late May and allowed three runs on six hits in six innings, walking a season-high four batters and hitting one.

Sunday – 1:15 pm

Odorizzi has been away from the Royals organization for so long that it takes a minute sometimes to remember that he was ever in it. The Twins acquired him with the hope that he would stabilize the middle of the rotation and he’s been fine enough. He’s striking out a ton of hitters at the second highest rate of his career with a very strong 23.7 percent rate. He’s also walking players at the highest rate of his career, tied with last season. Hitters are having an inordinate amount of success against him when the at bat ends on the first pitch. He’s allowed a .474 average and .974 slugging percentage in those situations, which is truly incredible. He’s also really struggled with the bases empty, allowing a .296/.375/.540 line, so if you put two and two together, you can be somewhat confident in a base hit to lead off an inning from someone. And if you want to talk about a third time through the order penalty, Odorizzi is the poster child. He’s allowed a .698 OPS the first time, .651 the second time and a robust 1.379 the third time through. Get him past 75 pitches where he allows a 1.158 OPS and even the Royals might be able to score some runs against him. He’s posted a 2.12 ERA against the Royals the last two years, allowing just four runs on 10 hits in 17 innings.

Keller looks to bounce back from the worst start in his career. He gave up five runs on seven hits in 2.2 innings and walked four more batters. Now he’s given up nine runs in his last 7.1 innings with nine walks allowed in his last two starts, so the question is if the league is starting to get a book on him. I guess we’ll find out the answer soon enough. Still, as a starter, he’s thrown 41 innings with a  3.73 ERA, but a 23:20 strikeout to walk ratio just won’t cut it and he’s given up 43 hits as well, so there have been tons of base runners. The saving grace is that he still hasn’t allowed a home run as a starter and has actually faced 235 batters since the last long ball allowed. I don’t think I care enough to look it up, but I’d guess that’s one of the longest streaks in baseball this year. The Twins, as a team, have just a .335 SLG against sliders, and when Keller has been really good, he’s had the slider working, so that seems to be an important pitch for him in this one.

Again, I promise to always predict that the Royals will be swept until they win a series, so get ready for three more home losses, friends.

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Monday

The Twins signed Lynn late in spring training, and his season didn’t get off on the best foot. Prior to his Tommy John surgery that cost him his 2016 season, he was remarkably consistent. On the surface, his numbers last year were great, but his strikeouts dropped and his walks rose. This year, the strikeouts are back up, but he’s walked a ton of hitters. He had his best start of the year his last time out against the Tigers, so it could be that he’s finally found his groove after not having much of a spring. He throws a four-seam fastball about 93-94 MPH quite a bit and a sinker about one-third of the time at 92-93 MPH. He mixes in a cutter, curve and the occasional changeup to round things out. He’s been okay at home this year, but he has an ERA of 8.14 on the road in five starts. Lynn has been pretty bad in basically every situation, but when he sees a lineup a third time, it gets really bad with a .286/.435/.571 line allowed and more walks than strikeouts. In four starts against the Royals in his career, Lynn has been really bad with a 5.55 ERA in 24.1 innings. In that time, he’s allowed 16 runs on 33 hits. Maybe the sight of Royals blue will bring back some bad memories.

Junis has been remarkably consistent this year, so much so that He’s ended each of his last three starts with an ERA between 3.51 and 3.53. He’s striking out a good number of hitters, walking very few and has been tough to hit. The down side on Junis is that he isn’t giving tons of innings over his last three starts, going just 16 innings in those three games, though one of those games was due to playing in National League rules with his spot coming up. If he’s careful with his slider against Rosario and Kepler, he should be able to pitch well as many Twins have struggled against sliders this season. Last year he made two starts against the Twins and posted a 3.27 ERA with 11 strikeouts in 11 innings. He did give up home runs to Buxton and Escobar, but he’s an even better pitcher now than last year, so that bodes well.

Tuesday

Gibson posted back-to-back 5.07 ERAs for the Twins the last two years and he’s been a much different pitcher this year. His home runs allowed are down, hits allowed are way down and his strikeouts are way up. His walks are too, but he’s managed to work around them because of the improvement everywhere else. He’s throwing his fastball a bit more this year than in the past, but otherwise, his repertoire isn’t all that different. He has struggled his last two starts, looking a lot more like the Gibson of the past, so we’ll see if things revert back for him as the season progresses. He’s been very good with the bases empty, allowing a .218/.340/.353 line, but he’s been out of this world with runners in scoring position, allowing a .189/.244/.297 line. That tells me that there’s likely regression coming in that regard, or maybe it’s already come. He’s made 15 starts against the Royals in his career and has been quite good, going 6-4 with a 3.46 ERA. Mike Moustakas and Alex Gordon have both been quite good against him in their careers while Salvador Perez has two home runs.

After his best start of the season, Duffy is looking to build on that and make it two in a row for the first time this season. He wasn’t perfect against the Rangers, but he looked considerably better and didn’t allow a home run for the first time since April 17 when he went six shutout innings against Toronto. He gave up 30 earned runs and 47 hits in 30 innings in the six starts in between with 11 home runs allowed, so I’m not entirely convinced he’s fixed, but a good start against a Twins lineup that really should be better than the numbers will be a nice sign. He’s been fantastic against the Twins in his career with a 2.49 ERA in 83 innings, and the only season he’s had a seasonal ERA against them over 3.29 was his rookie year. It’s a very small sample, but Robbie Grossman’s 15 plate appearances against Duffy have been really impressive (.462/.533/.846), so even though he’s been really bad this year, he’s someone to watch out for.

Wednesday

Romero is one of the Twins top prospects and has been incredible for them in his first five big league starts. His fastball and sinker average about 96 MPH and he adds a slider that has been responsible for most of his strikeouts to round things out. He’s gotten plenty of strikeouts, walked probably a few too many and limited home runs and hits as well as anyone in baseball. Really every number makes him Romero look every bit the top of the rotation starter he has been since he came up at the start of the month. One of the more amazing ones is that in 50 plate appearances that have ended when the batter had the advantage in the count, he’s allowed just seven singles. Yes, he’s walked a few, but he hasn’t allowed an extra base hit in five starts when he’s behind in the count. That seems crazy. There really isn’t a situation he hasn’t thrived in his brief big league time, so this’ll be a tough one for the Royals.

Keller gets a crack in the rotation after pitching so well out of the bullpen to start the season. While it’s important to get Keller starts this year and I’m all for this, I’m not expecting a ton. One of the reasons he was available in the Rule 5 draft is that he had been somewhat underwhelming as a starter in the minors with a 4.68 ERA in AA last season in 26 starts. If he can maintain most of the velocity he showed in the bullpen, he could be very successful in this role. And if not, this is exactly what the Royals should be doing. I’m not sure what to expect in this start, but I am excited to see what he can do.

I don’t know why, but I have a feeling the Royals are going to fare well this series and actually win two of three. The Twins are struggling right now and the Royals are coming off a winning road trip and don’t have to face Jose Berrios. It seems like they have a good shot at another series win in this one.