Game thread CIV - Cubs at Royals

The Cubs are not that good, the Royals have been amazing at home. Let’s start the series off right

The Royals, fresh off an off-day and a bitter loss to the Diamondbacks on Wednesday night, get to open a series against the Chicago Cubs today. The Royals have feasted on the other Chicago team all season, losing only one game so far, and the Cubs, while much better than the White Sox, haven’t been particularly good.

The Royals will ask Brady Singer to get things going, tonight. Singer had a fantastic start against the Southsiders last week, going seven shutout innings while using a brand-new grip on his sweeper. If he can bring some of that same energy to the game tonight, it would go a long way to defeating the Cubs.

The Cubs, on the other hand, will send out the shell of Kyle Hendricks to start tonight’s game. It was only four years ago that Hendricks was receiving Cy Young votes while pitching for the Cubs, at age 34, the wheels appear to have fallen off and he has pitched to a staggering 6.69 ERA in 18 games, only 13 of which have been starts. After a disastrous start to the year that saw him sent to the bullpen for five games, he rejoined the rotation in mid-June. The first two starts were pretty good, but only one of the past four have been worth anything and his strikeout rate, which already wasn’t good, has plummeted while he’s given up 12 runs in 19 innings, including a seven-inning shutout performance against the Cardinals right before the break.

The moral of the story is that Hendricks can and should be beaten.

The Royals are still leading off Adam Frazier, but the trade deadline seems to be firmly underway as the Rays dealt outfielder Randy Arozarena to the Mariners late last night and hopefully that means the Royals will be able to acquire some reinforcements, soon.

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