Cardinals Vitals

Royals vs. Cardinals

Offense

Pitching

Cardinals Projected Lineup

Projected Pitching Matchups

Friday – 7:15 pm

Gomber is a big lefty who never ranked all that high on prospect lists, but always had success in the minors before his debut this season. He doesn’t have amazing stuff, throwing a decent fastball at around 94 or so along with a really good curve, a changeup and a slider. The curve is his money pitch, but the changeup has been a problem for him in very limited exposure and might be what ultimately keeps him in the bullpen long term. This will be his third start, and it’s been a mixed bag in the previous two. In his last start, he gave up four runs on seven hits over four innings and walked three while striking out five. He made his first start in late July against the Reds and was very good, so it’s hard to say what to expect. He’s probably not going to be on a long leash after throwing just 71 pitches last time out and coming out of the bullpen before that, so even if he’s good early, I’d say there’s a fair chance he’s not long for this one. The sample is limited, but he really needs to be able to get ahead to get to his curve ball on his terms. When he’s behind in the count, he’s allowed a .346/.575/.846 line , but when he’s ahead, that drops all the way to .063/.063/.063. So yeah, don’t fall behind.

Smith’s last two starts have left something to be desired. He’s allowed 11 earned over nine innings in those two starts and given up three home runs and 17 base runners. So that’s not good. He’s fairly lucky that all the potential replacements for him in the rotation are hurt right now because there’s just not really another option. While I believe he’s better suited for starting than relieving because I think his repertoire plays better in the rotation and Ned Yost believes he is because he prepares like a starter, I’m thinking it’s becoming somewhat clear that he’s better suited for the minor leagues. If the Royals are interested in winning this game and not developing (which you could honestly argue either is right), they’d get Smith out early. He’s actually almost decent the first time through the order before allowing a .571/.667/.571 line in 12 plate appearances the third time through.

Saturday – 6:15 pm

The Royals finally get to face a right-handed starter after four straight against lefties. Flaherty has been outstanding this year after a rough debut last season for the Cardinals. He’s striking out a ton of hitters and has only allowed 73 hits in his 96.1 innings, which is obviously pretty great. He works with a fastball at 93-94, a really good slider, sinker curve and changeup. I say the slider is really good because he’s allowed just a .155 average on it and it’s accounted for 60 of his 118 strikeouts in spite of throwing it less than 30 percent of the time. While he’s been good, you can see in the innings pitched and starts he’s made that he just doesn’t get very deep into games. That’s somewhat by design to protect his arm, but even so, he’s only pitched past the fifth inning in nine of his 18 starts and has only pitched in the seventh three times. Between him and Gomber, the Royals have an opportunity to really get into the Cardinals bullpen over the first couple games.

While Duffy has been so much better overall (6-4, 3.41 ERA over his last 14 starts), he’s been roughed up pretty good in two of his last three starts. You can argue that he shouldn’t have been roughed up in his last start because of a bad call on Jake Cave before he allowed a grand slam, but he also put himself in a situation where the bases were loaded in the first place. Duffy had been really good against the Cardinals in his career in his three starts, going 2-0 with a 2.04 ERA with 22 strikeouts and two walks in 17.2 innings. He hasn’t faced them since 2016, but those are some pretty fantastic numbers. Don’t tell anyone this part, though–he’s actually only faced four Cardinals hitters, so there’s just not much history there.

Sunday – 1:15 pm

Weaver was impressive last season in his 13 games (10 starts), posting a better than four to one strikeout to walk ratio, but he hasn’t really built on that momentum. He’s striking out fewer, walking more and he also hasn’t been a guy to get terribly deep into games. He works heavily with a fastball and changeup, mixing in a curve and a cutter at times. His changeup has been hit decently with seven home runs allowed on it and a .203 ISO, but his curve has been really mashed with a .328 average against it and .609 slugging percentage. Lefties would be wise to go first-pitch curve ball hunting as he throws them a curve 26 percent of the time. They have four hits in 12 at bats including a home run on first-pitch curves, so guys like Brett Phillips, Lucas Duda and Alex Gordon should look to trigger early. Weaver took the loss against the Royals earlier this year giving up three runs on seven hits in seven innings but striking out eight. He gave up home runs to Gordon and Salvador Perez.

Junis finally had a really nice start in his last time out against the Cubs. He gave up just a run on five hits with eight strikeouts in five innings. I’m guessing he would have gone longer, but the short rain delay may have caused a bit of a snag. It was nice to see him get some swings and misses and some strikeouts without getting hit hard like he had in previous starts. Since coming back from the DL, it’s been hit or miss for Junis with 22 strikeouts and nine walks in 19.1 innings but 24 hits allowed. Still, only two home runs in that time is a good sign for him after getting hit so hard by the home run ball before his back injury. This is always the case, but if he has his slider working, he’ll be just fine. If he doesn’t, the Cardinals could easily tee off on him.

The Cardinals are playing well, but I still think the Royals find a way to win this series and take the season series against them.

Cardinals Vitals

Cardinals vs. Royals

Offense

Pitching

Cardinals Projected Lineup

Projected Pitching Matchups

Monday

Mikolas has been a nice surprise for the Cardinals with just how good he’s been even though they had high hopes for him when they signed him after time in Japan. He’s doing it by having some absolutely fantastic control, walking just 2.4 percent of the batters he’s faced. He doesn’t strike out many hitters, so that’s something to pay attention to with him, but he has allowed an average exit velocity of just 86.4 MPH. He has stranded 83.7 percent of runners, which is well above average, so there should be some regression to the mean there to bring the ERA up a bit. It’s interesting that he throws so many first pitch strikes because he will start at bats with any of his four main pitches, which means he can control everything. And for some reason, opponents are taking the first pitch about two-thirds of the time. A little ambush might be the ticket to getting to Mikolas. Well, that and waiting until a third time through the order when he has allowed a .749 OPS.

Kennedy has seen his season really spiral over his last two starts. He had a 2.92 ERA after his May 4^th start, and since has given up 14 runs in 10 innings with four home runs allowed. This is likely a good chunk of regression to the mean, but I don’t think it means Kennedy can’t be useful moving forward. I said this before his last start, but it might be a good idea if he starts to lean on his changeup more. Opponents are hitting just .083 against it with a .111 SLG. That’s a heck of a lot better than pretty much any other pitch he throws. Maybe he does well with it because he uses it scarcely, but given how hard he’s been hit in his last couple starts, it’s worth finding out. He’s faced the Cardinals nine times in his career and is 3-6 with a 7.41 ERA, so there’s that. It’s obviously a tiny sample, but Tommy Pham is 4 for 8 with a home run and two doubles against him, so maybe he should just pitch around Pham.

Tuesday

Weaver was the Cardinals first round pick in 2014 and has pitched in at least parts of the last three seasons. Last year, he showed flashes of a top of the rotation starter. This year, he’s regressed in some ways with fewer strikeouts and more walks, but his home run rate has come down by quite a bit. I’m not sure how much of that is skill and how much of that is luck, but it looks a lot more like his minor league numbers than what he showed last season in that regard. He relies on a four seam fastball that averages around 94 MPH, a changeup and a curve. While he hasn’t allowed many to hit for power, lefties have done much better against him than righties with a .305/.380/.375 line with just 15 strikeouts in 93 plate appearances, so the Royals lefties might have to shoulder the load in this one. He has been a bit of the opposite of Mikolas in that he’s struggled with runners in scoring position, which has led to a below average strand rate. It’s an issue he had in the big leagues in 2016 as well, but he’s too talented to keep that up. Like Mikolas, though, he has issues the third time through, but they’re even worse with a .306/.419/.500 line allowed. He doesn’t get there often. In fact, he’s only even pitched into the sixth inning four times in his nine starts.

For a few starts, it looked like some of the adjustments Hammel made were working and he would have some trade value at the deadline. Those days are over. He has a 10.71 ERA in his last four starts with just 10 strikeouts. He just isn’t missing any bats really and his stuff isn’t good enough to elicit weak contact. I guess if there’s something you can say about him it’s that he’s giving some innings sometimes to save a bullpen, which I guess isn’t nothing. He’s 4-6 with a 5.51 ERA in 13 career starts against St. Louis. He pitched decently against them last season and he has held Matt Carpenter in check with just a .138/.167/.276 line against Hammel in 30 plate appearances. The best hope for Hammel and really all Royals starters this week is that the Cardinals have hit just .238/.310/.388 against right-handed starters through Saturday’s action.

Wednesday

Through 2015, it looked like Wacha was on his way to becoming one of the better starters in the National League for the foreseeable future. Then in the last two years, he’s struggled a bit and his future was a bit more uncertain. This year, the results have been good again. He’s walking too many hitters, but he’s done a nice job as usual keeping home runs in check and he looks like a solid middle rotation arm at the least again, which is good news for the Cardinals. His batted ball data is interesting this year. He’s getting way fewer ground balls, but also fewer fly balls. The line drive percentage is up, but his exit velocity allowed is fine at an average of 87.7 MPH. He has a reverse platoon split this year and it’s significant. He’s allowed a .279/.370/.442 line to righties compared with .202/.266/.222 line to lefties in a pretty similar number of plate appearances. That bodes well for Whit Merrifield, Jorge Soler and Salvador Perez in this game. Sure enough, Soler is 5 for 8 with two homers against him in his career, so maybe he can have a big game to help the Royals win.

Junis was solid against the Yankees, if not hurt a bit by the home plate umpire’s odd strike zone. The home runs allowed are a big reason why his DRA and FIP are both elevated, but he’s only allowed more than one in two starts. The issue is that he’s allowed eight in those two starts. A key for him has been getting swings on pitches outside the strike zone, usually with his slider. If he can do that, he’s going to be tough for any team to hit, but some of the Cardinals mashers like Martinez, Pham, Gyorko and Carpenter have all had big struggles with the slider. Junis hasn’t yet faced the Cardinals in his career, but I think this could be a good start for him as long as that slider is working.

Just like every series, I can’t envision a world where the Royals win it, so I’m guessing they lose two of three, but if the starting pitching continues down the track it’s gone, I could see this being a really ugly sweep.

HR Roll Call Chris DeVito (9), Khalil Lee (5), Nick Dini (2)

BPKC Hitter of the Day: Elier Hernandez 3-4 2-3b, 2b, R, 2 RBI

BPKC Pitcher of the Day: Gabe Cramer 3 IP 3 H 0 R 0 ER 0 BB 8 K 45p/34k

Wilmington Blue Rocks 10 Salem Red Sox 2

The Blue Rocks broke through for the first time versus Salem this season with a big offensive night by their three main weapons.

Leadoff man Nicky Lopez, outfielder Elier Hernandez and infielder Wander Franco combined for eight of the Rocks twelve hits while also driving in five of the 10 team runs.

Trailing 2-1 after a first inning double by Michael Chavis, Wilmington broke through with a four-run second inning that featured a two run triple by Lopez. From there, starter Cristian Castillo found a groove, retiring 10 straight Red Sox hitters on his way to earning his first High-A win of the season.

Reliever Gabe Cramer pitched three strong innings with eight strikeouts to earn his first save of the year.

Boxscore Link

Anderson Miller 1-5 R, RBI 17-game on base streak
Wander Franco 3-4 2R hitting .293
Cristian Castillo 6 IP 3 H 2 R 2 ER 3 BB 4 K 8-2 GO-FO 91p/55k

Lexington Legends 8 Greensboro Grasshoppers 4

The Legends used their big power to flex their way to a win over the Marlins affiliate in the first game of their series in Greensboro on Tuesday.

Trailing 2-1 in the 3rd inning, Khalil Lee quickly tied things up with his fifth home run of the year, a drive over the left-center field fence. The homers weren’t finished for the Legends in that inning however as Chris DeVito, the South Atlantic League home run leader, took the Grasshoppers pitcher deep for a two-run blast over the right-center fence to give Lexington a 4-2 lead.

That offense would make sure that lead would not be relinquished with solo runs in four of the next six innings, including Nick Dini’s second home run of the season. It was enough for starter Nolan Watson to win his first decision of the year.

Boxscore Link

Khalil Lee 2-4 HR, BB
Chris DeVito 2-4 2R, HR, 2b, 3 RBI
Gabe Cancel 3-5 3R, 2b (10)

Memphis Cardinals 2 Omaha Storm Chasers 1

After two 2-1 games on Monday the Chasers thought they would play another, unfortunately, this one wouldn’t go their way against Memphis.

Starter Jake Junis went toe to toe with Cardinals #7 prospect Luke Weaver. The Royals righthander went seven strong innings allowing just a run on five hits and three walks while striking out six. The only damage to Junis came in the second frame when Patrick Wisdom tripled to left in front of a Paul DeJong sacrifice fly.

The Chasers could put together just three singles off Weaver in his six innings and get their only run of the game in the ninth via a Jorge Soler single before stranding two runners to drop the game. The loss was credited to Junis despite Mark Peterson giving up the deciding run in the eighth on a solo home run off the bat of Luke Volt.

Boxscore Link

Jake Junis 7 IP 5 H 1 R 1 ER 3 BB 6 K 3-8 GO-FO 104p/64k
Jorge Soler 2-4 RBI
Ramon Torres 1-4 R

NW Arkansas Naturals 6 Springfield Cardinals 5 F/12

The Naturals bullpen wasted a good start by Christian Binford and a four-run lead in the first game of their series with Springfield.

It was the fifth straight quality start this season in five tries for Binford, giving NW Arkansas his first seven inning start this season. With just one run and five hits allowed, Binford gave a 5-1 lead to the bullpen after pounding the zone for 67 strikes in 92 pitches thrown.

From there, Sam Selman allowed three runs in just two-thirds of an inning and Reid Redman gave up a tying home run to send the game into extra innings once again.

In extras, the Naturals got a hit from Logan Moon to score pinch runner Humberto Arteaga from second before Ashton Goudeau picked up the final three outs to secure the win.

Boxscore Lead 

Alfredo Escalera 2-4 2R, 2b, RBI, BB
Frank Schwindel 3-5 2-2b, 3 RBI, BB
Logan Moon 2-6 RBI