ALDS Game thread 1 - Royals at Yankees

KC can put themselves in the driver’s seat by beating the Yankee ace.

The Royals have now popped champagne twice this year and have an opportunity today to start their path for a third party in as many weeks.

Today’s game is not a must-win, they only need to win three of the five games after all, but if they find a way to beat the Yankees’ ace, Gerrit Cole, the road will instantly become much smoother.

Cole was hurt for much of the year and never faced the Royals. His ERA is an unimpressive-for-him 3.41, but three of his last four starts have seen him refuse to allow a single earned run. If the Royals are looking for hope, it’s probably at that other start where he gave up seven runs in 4.1 innings to the Boston Red Sox.

Royal starter Michael Wacha knows a little bit about that, though. He has a 3.35 ERA on the year, but since a road start against the Angels at the beginning of May, it’s a 2.72 ERA. Nine of his last eleven starts have seen him allow two runs or fewer. There may be some concern as his pitches were uniformly being left up in his final start of the regular season against Washington when he gave up four runs (three earned) in only five innings of work, but he’s now had more than a week’s rest since then. If it was fatigue-induced, hopefully, he has some juice back. If it was a mechanics problem, hopefully, he figured out what to do about it in the interim.

Lineups

The Royals will use the same lineup against Cole that they used against Orioles’ ace Corbin Burnes. They managed to eke out only a single run against Burnes but that was enough behind the fantastic pitching the Royals have brought to the playoffs.

And, frankly, from where I’m sitting, the Yankees lineup seems less impressive. Yes, Aaron Judge and Juan Soto are MVP candidates. But after them and Gleyber Torres, none of the remainder of the hitters seemed remotely impressive during the month of September. Alex Verdugo inexplicably gets the start in left despite being a worse hitter than rookie Jasson Domínguez and Oswaldo Cabrera will start at first for the injured Anthony Rizzo. Austin Wells, batting fourth, had a 22 wRC+ in the month of September and provides scant protection for Judge.

There are no easy games in the playoffs and this one is no exception. But this is the opportunity the Royals have bought themselves. Here’s hoping they can make the best of it.