VS
RECORDS: White Sox 2-4 / Royals 3-4
START TIMES: Fri 7:05, Sat 6:05, Sun 1:05
TV: NBCSCH
Are You Missouri Or Are You Kansas: Royals Review
Probable Starters
Friday: Dallas Keuchel vs. Kris Bubic
Saturday: Gio Gonzalez vs. TBD
Sunday: Dylan Cease vs. TBD
Heading into the second weekend of the season, did anyone out there pick the Royals to have a better record than the Sox? Put your hands down, you’re a goddam liar. Anyways that’s where we currently sit, with the Royals having one more win than the SouthSiders coming into Friday night’s tilt. Granted, they’re coming off a 4 game swing against the Tigers, but Ws are Ws and they have more.
This is a team that’s actively battling the Tigers and Orioles for the #1 overall pick in next year’s draft, and is throwing everything at the wall this season to see what’s going to stick for the future. Whit Merrifield and Jorge Soler are basically the only pieces that are worth anything and yet the Royals don’t seem interesting in moving them for parts. They’re also the only two members of the lineup currently hitting, so the Sox starters should probably keep that in mind.
On the pitching side of things, the Royals have brought up their prized rookie pitcher Brady Singer who started the other night against the Tribe, giving up 2 in five innings and keeping the Cleveland bats off stride. Other than him, it’s a bunch of rookies and journeymen (and Danny Duffy, who’s still around so fantasy baseball writers can list him as a potential breakout each year) that they’ll toss out each night. This is evidenced by the fact that they have TBD penciled in as their starter in 2 of the 3 nights against the Sox.
The most obnoxious elements of last year’s dustup with Tim Anderson are still here, so we’ll at least have a little drama to eyeball. Fingers crossed Timmy hits a few bombs and pimps the living shit out of each one. Professional curmudgeon Ned Yost has grabbed his hobo bindle and fucked off into the sunset, but he got replaced by Mike Matheny (who’s basically the same guy) so most of the Sox players can expect to get thrown at and then lectured about how to play the game the “right way.”
For the Sox, the story is the same. If the starting pitching can keep from giving up 5 runs in the first 2 innings the odds of victory go up exponentially. Just don’t walk anyone not named Merrifield or Soler and things should go swimmingly. Cease and Gonzalez have the perfect lineup to bounce back against and build some confidence and momentum going forward. Keuchel just needs to repeat his performance against the Twins and he should be able to keep the Royals bats at bay.
For the Sox hitters, they’re facing a starter Friday night that’s never pitched above the high A ball level and I guarantee he’s never seen anything like Luis Robert or Yoan Moncada. This is a rotation and bullpen just asking to be pummeled into submission, so a little patience at the plate and they should crumble like the argument of a facebook science denier. Now that I’ve said all that, I fully expect the Sox to have 12 hits total over the course of the series because life is pain and we are in The Bad Place.
Of course, this all could be a moot point thanks to the announcement today that the Cardinals and Brewers game is postponed due to at least two Cards players testing positive for The Rona. All while the Marlins are bussing 20 players positive with the virus home to Miami. Can you imagine actually wanting to stay in Philadelphia instead of going home to Miami because the hospitals are nicer? Welcome to 2020!
