Game thread CXXIII - Royals at Reds

At the quarter pole of the season, the Royals still control their own destiny.

Going into this season, I was the most optimistic writer here at Royals Review, projecting the team to finish 81-81. After last night’s game, the Royals have played more than 75% of their season and are still on pace to finish with 89 wins. They are within striking distance of the division, only five games back of the badly slumping Cleveland Guardians with seven games left to play against their rivals. They control their own destiny in the Wild Card race with a 2.5-game lead over the Boston Red Sox and a 4.5-game lead over the Mariners.

One blemish on the team has been their inability to beat teams who are not the White Sox or Tigers since the All-Star Break. The good news is that they had ten games against those teams and won nine of them, but otherwise they’ve lost every single series they’ve played against other teams. Tonight, they have an opportunity to change that by defeating the formerly red-hot Cincinnati Reds in a second straight game.

The offense could struggle, tonight. Left-hander Nick Lodolo will go for the Reds. He’s had something of an up-and-down time so far in his young career. His rookie season in 2022 saw him pitch quite well, but he struggled mightily with injuries and effectiveness last season and spent a good chunk of the year at the Reds’ AAA affiliate. Back in the big leagues this season, his strikeout rate has fallen by 25% but he’s reduced his home run rate from last year by 60%.

He has never faced the Royals before and, in fact, their entire roster has only nine at-bats against him with Garrett Hampson hitting a double in his lone time at the dish, Paul DeJong going hitless in a pair of at-bats, and Hunter Renfroe hitting a solo home run in six at-bats. Since Lodolo is a lefty, Vinnie Pasquantino will be the sole lefty to face him in the starting lineup. Interestingly, Lodolo doesn’t appear to have significant splits between left- or right-handed hitters. He does walk lefties twice as often, but he’s naturally faced far fewer of them so that could be small sample noise.

Despite having generally good numbers, Lodolo hasn’t pitched very after a hot start. Since the end of June he has given up at least two runs in every start he’s made which has contributed to an ERA of 5.89, though a FIP of only 4.69 in eight games. He has a WHIP of 1.33 which is not terrible, but definitely isn’t good. The problem seems to be a near-inability to strand runners. Over those eight games, he has a measly 62.3% LOB%. Combine that with the Royals’ season-long ability to hit with runners on and runners in scoring position and perhaps you’d expect this to be a route. Unfortunately, as previously noted, the team has never faced Lodolo before and one area the Royals have seemed to struggle in for years is hitting pitchers they’re not used to.

Michael Wacha will pitch for KC and he had the second-best start of anyone the last turn through the rotation, pitching seven innings of two-run ball against the Cardinals last weekend. With that start, he now has a 2.56 ERA since the All-Star Break, but a 4.85 FIP powered by a very low number of strikeouts and five home runs in only 31.2 innings. Let’s hope he can keep outpitching that particular. It seems plausible if the home runs he gives up continue to be solo shots and the only runs he allows; the five dingers account for six of the nine runs he has allowed over that span.

Lineups

A big key for the Royals will be continuing to keep Bobby Witt Jr.’s opposite number in check. The young star has 17 plate appearances over four games against the Royals in his career and has reached base only once, via walk. Despite his difficulty reaching base, he still has two stolen bases and a run scored so continuing to keep him off the bases is vital.

Hunter Renfroe has received multiple days off recently because after months of hitting with the very best in MLB, he has now gone 0-for-4 in six straight games without walking a single time. He’ll be batting fifth today and the Royals will be counting on him to come out of the still-small slump or else it could severely hamper their ability to score runs.