Game LXXXIII: Royals v. Guardians

Kansas City starts its biggest home series in since 2017

The Royals have been struggling. There’s no doubt about it. A little over a month ago, they won their 8th straight game to go to 15-games above .500 for the first time since 2015. At the time, they trailed Cleveland by just 1.5 games in the American League Central and had a better run differential than the Guardians.

The Royals are 10-19 since and enter this weekend’s four-game set against Cleveland 9.0 games back having played four more games.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that Kansas City currently holds a share of the final AL Wild Card spot. It’s the latest point in a season that they have held a playoff spot since August 2017.

There are wide-ranging opinions on this team, making Matthew LaMar’s piece on expectations and standards all the more relevant. Some of us are panicked, seeing a team that was once legitimately a top team in the AL crumble. Some of us are just happy to be here, knowing most of us would have gleefully taken a 44-38 record on June 27 before the season began.

Regardless of where you fall and how good you think this team can be, we can all agree that this weekend’s series against the first-place Guardians is the biggest series in Kansas City since 2017.

The Royals carry some energy into this weekend after a thrilling comeback win on Wednesday that allowed Kansas City to scrape together a series win against an ungood Marlins team.

Now, they get the privilege of playing one of the hottest teams in baseball, fresh off a seven-game winning streak. Kansas City sends Michael Wacha to the mound to face Cleveland for the first time this season. He gave the Royals 5.0 solid innings in his return from the IL last week but took the loss giving up just a single run thanks to the offense being shutout.

He’ll face an old friend in Ben Lively who may be the most surprising performer in baseball this season. Between 2017 and 2023, Lively made 32 starts and posted an ERA of 5.53. The 32-year-old had a little over 200 innings to his name, including a single inning for the Royals in 2019. He spent part of that season in Korea, before pitching full-time in the KBO in 2020-21.

Cincinnati gave him a shot in 2022, where he was unremarkable at AAA, then got another shot in the bigs in 2023, where he was again unremarkable. It was enough, though, to get a one-year MLB deal with the Guardians. And after 12 starts, marking roughly 25% of his career output, Lively has an ERA hovering at 3.00.

That’s the sort of stuff that takes you from having an 80.5 preseason over/under to being 51-27. That and Steven Kwan turning into Stan Musial.

Here are your lineups for tonight’s game.