Game VI Thread: Royals in Cleveland

The Royals are struggling to play baseball games.

The Royals could be described as ice cold and that would be a metaphor but the weather for today’s game will be literally ice cold with temperature projected to be around freezing at game start. Maybe the Royals are starting off the year cold or maybe the year is just starting off cold. Either way perhaps they should provide today’s starter, Ian Kennedy, with a personal space heater so that he can have a better start to today’s game.

This will be Kennedy’s second start of the year and the first went a lot like Danny Duffy’s start, yesterday. Kennedy threw almost 40 pitches in his first inning though he only allowed a single run. After that he pitched 5 scoreless to keep the Royals in the game before the bullpen blew it. That worked against the White Sox but allowing 3 of the first 4 runners to reach against Cleveland would be a recipe for disaster.

Countering Ian will be the ever enigmatic Trevor Bauer. Bauer is known more for his off-the-field antics than his pitching on the field with such memorable stories from the time he cut his finger so badly playing with his toy drone (warning, graphic content) that he missed playoff starts, to the many times he has lashed out at followers on social media, to the time he donated money to charity in marijuana and sex-act themed increments. Despite all that “Bauer Outage” has actually been a solid to above average major league starting pitcher in his career. He hasn’t always gotten a lot of support against the Royals, though, going 2-3 with a 3.36 ERA in 10 starts while striking out only 41 and walking 22 in 56.1 innings.

Lineups

Looks like Jorge Soler got left out of the lineup, again. He doesn’t have a hit, yet, this season and the Royals must have feared what would happen if they sent #SolerPower up against #BauerOutage.