Royals Series 4/19-4/21

[Hank Scorpio]

15 minutes ago, Mooreisbetter27 said:

Not looking forward to them stealing 15 bases off of us this series.  

Hamelin's specialty...

[RZNJ]

Holliday is the only thing standing between us having a dangerous hitter 1-9 with our A lineup.  Once he gets going, no soft spots.  Very few teams can say this.   Good pitching still stops good hitting.  Just have to hope the Royals pitchers don’t have their A+ games in this series.   First two games look like tossups pitching wise, and we look to be at a disadvantage on Sunday.  2 out of 3 would be excellent.

[sportsfan8703]

40 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

The Grienke start last year was excruciating.

I agree, something needs to give here between our hot hitting and their good pitching.  Marsh looks like that dude who can give us fits no matter how he's rolling.

Ragans is a good pitcher no matter what.  The Burnes/Ragans matchup looks to be a great duel.

As annoying as KC can be, I am really looking forward to this series kicking off tonight because it's good competition.  

We’re going to be favored in everyone of Burnes’ starts this year. Probably GR too. Extend Burnes  ASAP.

Witt is one of only a handful of IF in the AL that would even start for us at 3B, SS, 2B. Witt, Jose Ramirez, Altuve, Bregman, Seager?

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

We’re going to be favored in everyone of Burnes’ starts this year. Probably GR too. Extend Burnes  ASAP.

Witt is one of only a handful of IF in the AL that would even start for us at 3B, SS, 2B. Witt, Jose Ramirez, Altuve, Bregman, Seager?

You don't think Volpe would start for them?

 

[Moose Milligan]

4 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

We’re going to be favored in everyone of Burnes’ starts this year. Probably GR too. Extend Burnes  ASAP.

Witt is one of only a handful of IF in the AL that would even start for us at 3B, SS, 2B. Witt, Jose Ramirez, Altuve, Bregman, Seager?

Yeah, Witt is great.  He and Gunnar will be going head to head for AL SS supremacy for years with Volpe being a try-hard ankle biter along the way.

Those others would start for us if we had availability.  I like our guys though.

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, Can_of_corn said:

You don't think Volpe would start for them?

 

I really hope Volpe is just having a great early season run.  Trouble for us if he’s actually that good.   

[dystopia]

5 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I really hope Volpe is just having a great early season run.  Trouble for us if he’s actually that good.   

He’s not. CoC is a Yankee fan. 

[interloper]

8 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I really hope Volpe is just having a great early season run.  Trouble for us if he’s actually that good.   

The K/BB ratio is worryingly good right now. More walks than anyone on our team. 

[Frobby]

Just now, interloper said:

The K/BB ratio is worryingly good right now. More walks than anyone on our team. 

He’s always walked a lot, so that doesn’t surprise me.   

[sportsfan8703]

17 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

You don't think Volpe would start for them?

 

Nope. From this point in the season going forward, I’d rather have our guys except for Seager, Ramirez, Bregman, Altuve, and Witt. 

I’m glad @Moose Milliganstarted this thread, but I don’t think anyone did the yearly thread where they rank our players position by position versus every other player in the AL East. 

It’s an easy exercise. I guess the only other players in the AL East that I’d rather have over any of our position players would be Judge, Soto, Devers(at 1B/DH), Arozerena, Vlad, and Bichette(at 1B/DH).

That’s not me being a homer. That’s realizing that we have a Braves type of lineup before the rest of the MLB fans catch on.

But… good pitching can shut us down. That’s why Burnes is priority #1 over Gunnar to extend. 

Edited April 19 by sportsfan8703

[dystopia]

9 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Nope. From this point in the season going forward, I’d rather have our guys except for Seager, Ramirez, Bregman, Altuve, and Witt. 

I’m glad @Moose Milliganstarted this thread, but I don’t think anyone did the yearly thread where they rank our players position by position versus every other player in the AL East. 

It’s an easy exercise. I guess the only other players in the AL East that I’d rather have over any of our position players would be Judge, Soto, Devers(at 1B/DH), Arozerena, Vlad, and Bichette(at 1B/DH).

That’s not me being a homer. That’s realizing that we have a Braves type of lineup before the rest of the MLB fans catch on.

But… good pitching can shut us down. That’s why Burnes is priority #1 over Gunnar to extend. 

Not Vlad. Highly overrated

[interloper]

2 minutes ago, dystopia said:

Not Vlad. Highly overrated

Not a Vlad guy myself either. Equal OPS+ to Mounty in 2023 and so far this year Mounty is coming closer to Vlad's best year (167) with his current 157. 

Plus Mounty can play defense and run the bases. I'm perfectly happy with him at 1B. 

[Fiver6565]

3 hours ago, ShoelesJoe said:

We stole two of the three games against KC when they came to Baltimore two weeks ago, and everybody knows it. My guess is they'll have a chip on their shoulder about that. They out-hit us and out-homered us in our own park, and an unlucky bounce here or there and we could have been swept. I know the Brewers blew us out two of three, but IMO the Royals are the best team we've face so far. I'm expecting to lose a couple in KC but wouldn't be surprised if we lost all three.  

I mean we haven’t been swept in a regular season series but sure let’s assume it happens in KC. 
 

Negativity as a defense mechanism against I guess disappointment is rampant in these parts. 
 

Meanwhile 6 of KC’s games have been against the awful ChiSox, so there is a little bit of that which you can factor into their record and stats, much the same way Norfolk excitement was tempered by the fact that Charlotte was so bad (what a hot mess that organization is).
 

KC is a tough team though; I think they are going to win the Central. 

[Can_of_corn]

14 minutes ago, interloper said:

Not a Vlad guy myself either. Equal OPS+ to Mounty in 2023 and so far this year Mounty is coming closer to Vlad's best year (167) with his current 157. 

Plus Mounty can play defense and run the bases. I'm perfectly happy with him at 1B. 

Super early but it's looking like his extreme splits last season were indeed an outlier.

[interloper]

3 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Super early but it's looking like his extreme splits last season were indeed an outlier.

Mounty? Yeah, I'm pretty darn comfy with him facing righties. He's laying off a lot of those sliders so far this year.