Kansas City » Lance Lynn

Series Preview: Royals vs. Minnesota Twins, July 20-22

David Lesky — Fri, 20 Jul 2018 17:00:45 +0000

Even though the Royals play like a minor league team, they don’t get the benefit of the rules of some minor leagues where the second half is a clean slate. That means they bring a horrific record into the first series of the “second half” against the Minnesota Twins, a team that has plenty of issues of their own. A strong finish before the break has put them in striking distance of the disappointing Indians, but they’re so far out of a wild card spot that the division is their only hope and it’s quite unlikely. The offense isn’t bad, but it isn’t good. The starting pitching isn’t truly horrible, but it isn’t good. And the bullpen has its bright spots, but it isn’t especially good either. This is a team with the upside of being pretty okay and the downside of finishing with 73 wins. It’s the dreaded middle ground.

Twins Vitals

Record	44-50, 2^nd Place AL Central
Team TAv	.258
Team SP DRA	5.27
Team RP DRA	4.21
Team WARP Leader	Eddie Rosario, 3.7
Record vs. Royals	3-3

Royals vs. Twins

Offense

Pitching

Twins Projected Lineup

	AVG	OBP	SLG	TAv	WARP
Joe Mauer	.273	.364	.364	.265	0.7
Eddie Rosario	.311	.352	.537	.308	3.7
Brian Dozier	.230	.314	.423	.268	2.0
Eduardo Escobar	.271	.327	.507	.289	2.3
Jorge Polanco	.264	.350	.377	.265	0.1
Robbie Grossman	.256	.336	.374	.266	0.0
Max Kepler	.227	.317	.407	.259	1.3
Jake Cave	.312	.346	.558	.318	0.7
Mitch Garver	.249	.332	.367	.257	0.1

Projected Pitching Matchups

Friday – 7:15 pm

	G	IP	W	L	ERA	DRA	WARP
Kyle Gibson	19	115.2	4	6	3.42	3.76	2.0
Danny Duffy	20	113.2	5	8	4.59	5.79	-0.7

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

	G	IP	W	L	ERA	DRA	WARP
Lance Lynn	18	91.1	7	7	5.22	7.10	-1.9
Jakob Junis	17	101.2	5	10	5.13	5.64	-0.4

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

	G	IP	W	L	ERA	DRA	WARP
Jake Odorizzi	20	101.0	4	6	4.54	5.93	-0.8
Brad Keller	29	63.1	2	4	3.13	6.35	-0.9

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.

Series Preview: Royals at Minnesota Twins, July 9-11

David Lesky — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 15:30:02 +0000

Next up on the list of teams benefitting from facing the Royals is the Minnesota Twins, who were expected to be a playoff contender but have been well under .500 this season. They had lost eight of nine before the Orioles came to town and they swept them and now have a chance to face the second-worst team in all the land to help them climb back in the race, even if it is a pipe dream at this point. The team was expecting Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton to take the next steps forward this year, but they’re both in the minors now. Instead, Eddie Rosario and Eduardo Escobar have been the keys in the lineup with a lot of average-ish performances from the rest of the unit. On the pitching side, the starters have been okay, as has the bullpen. This really is an okay enough team, but they likely don’t have enough to get back in the race, even with 16 games against the Royals left in the season.

Twins Vitals

Record	39-48, 2^nd Place, AL Central
Team TAv	.257
Team SP DRA	5.19
Team RP DRA	4.23
Team WARP Leader	Eddie Rosario, 3.6
Record vs. Royals	1-2

Royals vs. Twins

Offense

Pitching

Twins Projected Lineup

	AVG	OBP	SLG	TAv	WARP
Joe Mauer	.259	.355	.349	.261	0.4
Eddie Rosario	.301	.342	.536	.308	3.6
Eduardo Escobar	.270	.326	.524	.299	2.4
Brian Dozier	.222	.305	.402	.262	1.9
Logan Morrison	.192	.289	.357	.237	-0.4
Jorge Polanco	.269	.345	.346	.259	0.0
Max Kepler	.229	.313	.407	.257	1.0
Mitch Garver	.268	.339	.395	.272	0.3
Jake Cave	.267	.302	.483	.290	0.5

Projected Pitching Matchups

Monday – 7:10pm

	G	IP	W	L	ERA	DRA	WARP
Danny Duffy	18	100.2	4	8	5.19	6.55	-1.5
Jose Berrios	18	114.1	8	7	3.54	3.90	1.8

Berrios was just named to the AL All-Star team, and he’s having a really nice season to build on his breakout from a year ago. He’s striking out more hitters than last year, walking fewer and he’s been even more difficult to hit. Home runs have been a bit of a problem, and he does hit quite a few batters, so Royals hitters should watch out for that, but Berrios is very good and should pose a problem for a limp offense. The biggest issue for Berrios this season has actually been his changeup, which he doesn’t throw much. He’s given up just seven hits with it, but five of them have been for extra bases, including four home runs. A couple things I find interesting about him are that he has no discernable platoon splits, which is a good thing for him. Also, he’s fantastic at home with a 6-2 record and 2.62 ERA in 10 starts with 77 strikeouts in 65.1 innings. He has a 6.66 ERA in 25.2 career innings against the Royals with five home runs allowed. I imagine that will change in this one.

Duffy has still been pretty good over his last eight starts now, with a 3.44 ERA over 49.2 innings. His last start didn’t go well, falling apart in the sixth inning when he allowed a grand slam to Yan Gomes. The encouraging thing over his last two starts has been fewer walks with just four over his last 12 innings. If he maintains that rate, things will be okay for him in that regard. He didn’t get the swings and misses that he had in previous starts, but even so, it’s nice to see him pitching to the level the Royals have expected of him. He’s faced the Twins once this year and allowed one run over six innings, though he did walk four. He’s 5-1 with a 2.43 ERA in 18 games and 89 innings against the Twins with Robbie Grossman and Jorge Polanco hitting him quite well in 18 and 12 plate appearances respectively.

Tuesday – 7:10pm

	G	IP	W	L	ERA	DRA	WARP
Ian Kennedy	17	91.2	1	8	5.11	5.17	0.1
Aaron Slegers	2	11.1	1	0	2.38	5.26	0.0

Slegers is seeing big league action for the second season, and after struggling last year, he’s been solid in his first two appearances of 2018. His first appearance of the year was actually against the Royals in the last offensive outburst this team has had, and he went 5.1 innings, allowing two runs on six hits and calming things down to give the Twins a shot to get back in the game. He’s certainly not a top of the rotation starter, but he’s put up good numbers in AAA in each of the last two seasons. If he’s going to be successful in the big leagues, it will be as a control pitcher who somehow keeps the ball in the yard. If he struggles, it’ll be because he doesn’t strike out enough hitters and no amount of control can fix that. His stuff is middling. He throws his fastball at 90-91, a slider that doesn’t move much and a decent looking changeup that has been his best pitch over his career. The sample is so small that it hardly matters, but in his career, he’s allowed eight hits in 20 at bats that end on the first pitch with three home runs. Given his solid control, getting started early in the count isn’t the worst idea.

Kennedy is scheduled to come off the DL for this start, and has been much better over his last few starts, posting a 3.19 ERA in 31 innings over his last five. He’s allowed five home runs in that time, so things aren’t all different for him, but that’s at least encouraging. Of course, the issue I’ve been worried about with him all season is that he just isn’t getting any whiffs this year, which means his once difficult to hit fastball is getting squared up way too often. It’s been a tale of two seasons for Kennedy in his matchups against the Twins with the Royals. In 2016, he was quite good with a 2.86 ERA and 27 strikeouts in 28.1 innings. Last year, he posted a 6.43 ERA in five starts spanning 21 innings and walked 14 batters. Given the way this season is going, I have to imagine that’ll be more like 2017 Kennedy vs. the Twins, but at least he’s had some relatively recent success against them.

Wednesday – 12:10pm

	G	IP	W	L	ERA	DRA	WARP
Burch Smith	24	38.1	0	0	5.40	6.49	-0.7
Lance Lynn	17	86.1	6	7	5.21	6.92	-1.7

The Lance Lynn signing hasn’t gone great for the Twins, though he’s been much better recently, going 5-3 with a 3.49 ERA in his last nine starts, and that includes a disaster start against the Cubs when he gave up seven runs in 1.2 innings. The biggest issue for him has been walks, and that’s still been a bit of a problem even on his recent run of success. Lynn relies heavily on his four-seamer and his two-seamer, throwing them a combined three-quarters of the time. The four-seamer has been a big problem with nine doubles, a triple and seven home runs allowed on it. The two-seamer hasn’t been as bad with the power numbers, but he’s allowed a .304 average. When the pitches you rely on the most have been hit like that, it’s easy to see why his numbers are subpar. Like Berrios, he’s been WAY better at home, posting a 2.53 ERA over eight starts. Unlike Berrios, the underlying numbers aren’t any better. He’s struck out fewer and walked more at home, but he’s just been more difficult to square up. I’m not sure if that’s anything sustainable or just random chance. He was the winning pitcher in the Twins victory over the Royals this year, going six innings and giving up two runs on six hits with three walks allowed.

Smith gets the chance to start after Jason Hammel finally got demoted to the bullpen. Even though Buddy Bell says that things can always get worse, I don’t think this can be any worse than Hammel’s last starts and Smith did a fantastic job in relief of Hammel the other night. He’s started before in the big leagues and pitched quite well as a starter in the minor leagues last season, posting a 2.40 ERA across three levels and was at his best in AAA. I’m skeptical he can make it work as a starter in the big leagues, but it’ll at least be nice to see some new blood. He faced the Twins twice when they visited Kansas City, and let’s just say that things didn’t go well. He allowed seven runs on five hits with three walks over three innings in those two games. I guess the idea is that this start goes better.

The Royals might win a game, but you won’t find me predicting it.

Series Preview: Royals vs. Minnesota Twins, May 28-30

David Lesky — Mon, 28 May 2018 15:00:39 +0000

The Royals return home and face off against the Minnesota Twins for the first time in 2018. After surprising last season, the Twins were expecting to take another step forward this year but that hasn’t come to fruition just yet. They’ve dealt with a few injuries, losing Jason Castro, Joe Mauer, Miguel Sano, Byron Buxon and Ervin Santana as key pieces of their roster as well as Jorge Polanco to an 80-game PED suspension. With those injuries along with Sano and Buxton both taking big steps back, the offense has been downright bad this season for them. The rotation has been surprisingly good with the addition of Jake Odorizzi as well as contributions from returning members and Fernando Romero starting his career off very well. And the bullpen has been a big strength. Even with the pitching staff keeping them in games most days, they’re very lucky to be in the AL Central.

Twins Vitals

Record	21-27, 2^nd Place, AL Central
Team TAv	.238
Team SP DRA	5.08
Team RP DRA	3.88
Team WARP Leader	Eddie Rosario, 1.2
2017 Record vs. Royals	11-8

Twins vs. Royals

Offense

Pitching

Twins Projected Lineup

	AVG	OBP	SLG	TAv	WARP
Brian Dozier	.234	.303	.401	.244	0.7
Max Kepler	.254	.335	.479	.266	0.3
Eddie Rosario	.298	.320	.527	.275	1.2
Miguel Sano	.200	.284	.422	.240	0.2
Eduardo Escobar	.270	.321	.494	.269	0.8
Logan Morrison	.200	.310	.347	.228	-0.5
Mitch Garver	.220	.281	.341	.217	-0.3
Ehire Adrianza	.214	.278	.286	.201	-0.3
Byron Buxton	.157	.186	.205	.146	-0.6

Projected Pitching Matchups

Monday

	G	IP	W	L	ERA	DRA	WARP
Lance Lynn	9	44.0	2	4	6.34	6.77	-0.8
Jakob Junis	10	61.1	5	3	3.52	4.53	0.5

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

	G	IP	W	L	ERA	DRA	WARP
Kyle Gibson	10	56.0	1	3	4.02	4.38	0.5
Danny Duffy	11	58.2	2	6	6.14	7.78	-1.7

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

	G	IP	W	L	ERA	DRA	WARP
Fernando Romero	5	28.2	2	1	1.88	5.42	-0.1
Brad Keller	21	22.1	1	1	2.01	4.71	0.0

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.