Royals vs Blue Jays Game 110 Gamethread

The Royals will take their newly-acquired dudes north of the border in their quest to get back to .500.

After a whirlwind trade deadline day yesterday, the 54-55 Royals will start the rest of the season with a new look. Randal Grichuk and Mike Yastrzemski will both be in the lineup for tonight’s matchup against the AL East-leading 64-46 Toronto Blue Jays.

I’d like to think I’m a person who is familiar with baseball players. I’d like to think I can look at any team’s lineup on any given night and say to myself “yes I know who that person is”. I cannot say that about the Blue Jays. I recognize 44% of their starting lineup.

I do, however, note that their starting lineup includes Ty France, the Babe Ruth of “guys who have played against the Royals”. In 150 career plate appearances against the boys in blue, France has a .392/.473/.654 line for a 204 OPS+. That’s 1980 George Brett, who hit .390/.454/.664. Obviously I’m cherry-picking historical stats, but I’m tired of seeing this guy against the Royals. Go play against someone else.

Anyway, tonight with a win the Royals can return to .500 after their torrid July. They will start Michael Wacha on the mound, who leads the team in starts. He’s generally been very solid - he doesn’t strike out a lot of guys, but he’s hard to get solid contact against. He’s top-20 in hard-hit rate allowed among qualified pitchers and appears to lead MLB in infield fly rate, according to FanGraphs. It’s a lot of weak contact.

The Blue Jays will start right-hander Kevin Gausman, who is turning in yet another solid season on his 5/$110M deal. The last time he started, he went six innings and struck out 10 guys and gave up only one hit against the Detroit Tigers. Before that, he struck out eight against the Yankees. He is a tough draw as the Royals try to leapfrog the Guardians in the standings, who are playing the Twins tonight.

All three trade acquisition hitters Yaz, Grichuk, and Adam Frazier will hit tonight. Given the right-handed starting pitcher for the Jays, Yaz is in RF while Grichuk is at DH. With Frazier in LF and Isbel in CF, the whole starting outfield is left-handed. Grichuk is not awful against right-handed pitching, which I imagine is why he’s getting DH tonight over John Rave, another left-handed bat. Like JJ said, “not a true platoon”.

The game starts at 6:07pm US Central. You can watch the game on FanDuel Sports Network Kansas City, KCTV 5, or KSMO. You can listen on the Royals Radio Network.

Lineups: