Series preview: Guardians vs. Royals
Let’s just all have fun out there
Well, this is it. Thanks to the lockout forcing a late start to the season, the Guardians will be wrapping up their 2022 regular-season campaign with six-straight games against the Royals. If the Guardians can win at least half the games, they’ll finish with 90 wins for the first time since 2019. No matter what happens, they are going to play three games at home in the Wild Card game next weekend.
If this series mattered for anything, I would warn that the Royals — while generally pretty terrible — have enough of an offense that they could be sneaky annoying. They are not a lineup completely void of talent, despite their awful record and run differential. At the very least, they have some future hope in Bobby Witt Jr. even as he’s struggled down the stretch. Twenty-four-year-old Vinnie Pasquantino leads with a .284/.374/.441 slash in his 66 games and Salvador Perez is finally showing signs of aging but still has 22 home runs on the season.
But make no mistake: they’re bad. The Royals rebuild went so poorly that they’ve cleaned house at the executive level, with president of baseball operations Dayton Moore axed by team owner John Sherman earlier this month. Their new general manager, J.J. Picollo, sounds competent, but it’ll be years before can dig the Royals organization out of the grave that Dayton Moore put them in. It certainly won’t have an effect on these six games.
Where the Royals offense is bad with some bright spots, the pitching staff is god awful with Brady Singer. With an ERA of 2.85 in 142 innings, he’s the only Royals starter with an ERA under 3.00. Zack Greinke, who turns 39 next month, is on the verge of his best ERA since 2019. He’s not the same Greinke that won a Cy Young his first time around in Kansas City, of course, but he’s still the same weirdo baseball loves. He’s also a cat person.
Don’t look for the Guardians to push anyone too hard in this series. Shane Bieber, Triston McKenzie, and Cal Quantrill are taking the final three starts as they line up for the Wild Card series. They’ll probably just get enough pitches to stay in rhythm and then take a seat on the bench. There’s also no reason to tax the bullpen before the games start counting again. With any luck, José Ramírez will get some days off in there and maybe Gabriel Arias will hit a couple of bombs. The Guards’ top catching prospect, Bo Naylor, is lurking on the taxi squad as well, so maybe we’ll see both regular catchers get a day or two off in the final week.
Either way, kick back, relax, and enjoy some stress-free baseball games. They’ll be the last you get for a while.
Team at a glance
- Record: 63-93 (14th in AL)
- Runs Scored: 615 (12th in AL)
- Run Differential: -165 (14th in AL)
- Last 10: 5-5
- Slash: .245/.308/.381
- wOBA: .303 (11th in AL)
- wRC+: 93 (12th in AL)
- ERA: 4.72 (15th in AL)
- SIERA: 4.44 (15th in AL)
- K/BB%: 9.4% (15th in AL)
Projected starters
Friday, Sept. 30, 7:10 p.m. ET: RHP Brady Singer vs. RHP Aaron Civale
Saturday, Oct. 1, 6:10 p.m. ET: LHP Kris Bubic vs. RHP Zach Plesac
Sunday, Oct. 2, 1:40 p.m. ET: RHP Max Castillo vs. RHP Shane Bieber
Monday, Oct. 3, 6:10 p.m. ET: RHP Zack Greinke vs. RHP Triston McKenzie
Tuesday, Oct. 4, 6:10 p.m. ET: LHP Daniel Lynch vs. RHP Cal Quantrill