Game VII: Royals v. White Sox

The Royals are back at home

The Royals have had worse starts to seasons.

After struggling to field a Major League rotation in recent years, Kansas City responded by bringing in Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha to join Cole Ragans and Brady Singer. Thus far, only four teams have more fWAR from their starters than the Royals while Houston is the only team in baseball with a better ERA from their starters.

Their position players have been average compared to their peers, but Bobby Witt Jr ranks 2nd in fWAR and is smashing every single baseball he can find. Maikel Garcia has 75% of the homers he had last season in 5% of the at-bats and is on pace to hit 81 dingers. He is also smashing every baseball in sight.

Considering the Royals got shut out in their first two games last season and couldn’t get anybody out, this season is off to a pretty darn good start!

The only problem is they have lost four of their first six games. So yeah, the rebuilt bullpen is looking more like Michael Scott’s Nordic Cherry end-table, but things could be worse! We can just ignore that Will Smith has given up as many runs in 2.2 innings (6) as all of Kansas City’s starters have in 37.1 innings (6).

2-4 should definitely be 3-3, should probably be 4-2, and could even be 5-1, but they get another shot to right the ship this weekend at home against the lowly White Sox. In fairness to both series losses, the Royals did open up against two pretty good teams and now they’ll get a break.

Seth Lugo is back on the mound after six shutout innings to open his time in Kansas City. He got the no-decision in that game after the bullpen blew their first save and Smith got rocked for the first time. Kansas City’s offense faces former Brave Michael Soroka in his second start with Chicago.

Soroka’s career is a bit of a sad story. The former All-Star and Atlanta’s 2020 Opening Day starter finished 2nd in the National League Rookie of the Year voting in 2019. However, his second season was cut short due to an Achilles tear. After rehabbing throughout 2021, he re-tore the Achilles in June walking back to the clubhouse. He didn’t get back on the mound at the big league level until 2023.

Soroka got traded to the White Sox last offseason in a package for Aaron Bummer. He struggled in his first start of 2024, surrendering four runs in five innings of work.

Here are the lineups for tonight’s matchup. Old friends Andrew Benintendi and Nicky Lopez are in the lineup for Chicago.