Royals at Rays, game three, game thread

The Royals look for the sweep in Tampa

Coming off a big win with an incredible debut by Noah Cameron last night, the Royals are looking to remain hot with a sweep of the Rays in Tampa this afternoon. The pitching has been elite, as the Royals pitching staff has looked like the best in baseball over the last two weeks. But the bats are still relatively quiet, but have done just enough to get the job done recently.

Pitching wise, the Royals have seen incredible performances from both the starters and the bullpen. Starters have gone for quality starts in six of the last eight games and as a whole, the team is allowing 2.22 runs per game over their last nine outing. This continued last night, as the team pitched a shutout, and Noah Cameron carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning in his MLB debut.

Offensively, the Royals bats are still lagging behind, only scoring 3.78 runs per game in their last nine, but have done enough to get eight wins. Bobby Witt Jr has remained one of the hottest players in baseball, carrying a 21 game hit streak into the game today. The captain Salvador Perez has been able to find the field with 11 hits in his last seven games as well. Other bats have had some sparks, but the team still needs more consistency from the offense going forward.

Today, Seth Lugo will take the mound for the Royals, coming off an incredible eight inning shutout against the Astros in his last start on Friday. Lugo got off to a rough start to the year, and his command to start the year just felt off in his first few games. But against Houston, Lugo was able to have a get back game, where he seemed incredibly confident on the mound and was able to use all of his pitches effectively.

For the Rays, Shane Baz takes the mound where he is also coming off his best start of the year where he threw seven scoreless innings against the Padres on Friday. Baz is just 25 years old and has flashed impressive stuff, with a hard 97 MPH fastball, which pairs well with his nasty curveball which he throws almost 35% of the time. He also will offer a slider and changeup, but mostly leans on the fastball curveball pair.

His 31.6% K rate is one of the best in baseball as he pounds the zone and makes his stuff very tough to pick up on. But he has a tendency to hang his breaking stuff in the zone, and if the Royals are able to look up in the zone, lay off the high fastball and tag him when he leaves the breaking ball in the zone, they will find success.

For the offense, India takes over in left and Perez takes the DH spot so Freddy Fermin can get in the game in the eight hole. Massey also comes back at second base and Mark Canha gets the seven hole in right field. Waters will take over in center as the Royals look for the sweep.

The Rays roll out a lefty heavy lineup with hopes of seeing Seth Lugo better and being able to avoid the sweep and falling 3 games below .500.