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Usually when opponents from the previous year's League Championship Series face each other at this point in the season, the series means something. With the World Champion Kansas City Royals wallowing in the gutter, six games below .500, these games mean next to nothing for one of the two squads.
*All stats courtesy of FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference
Pitching match-ups
Game One - Friday, 7:15 PM CDT
| Pitcher | G | IP | K | BB | ERA | FIP | xFIP | SIERA | fWAR | rWAR |
| Francisco Liriano (L) | 21 | 113.2 | 116 | 69 | 5.46 | 5.27 | 4.52 | 4.68 | -0.3 | -0.6 |
| Dillon Gee | 21 | 73.1 | 59 | 24 | 4.66 | 5.11 | 4.60 | 4.34 | -0.2 | 0.1 |
When Dillon Gee is arguably the better pitcher in a match-up, that says something about how the competition has pitched. Acquired at the deadline along with Reese McGuire and Harold Ramirez for Drew Hutchison, Liriano has been positively dreadful. When the notion of a six-man rotation is thrown out there, Francisco Liriano is the consequence. He's got 19 more walks than Yordano Ventura in 5.2 fewer innings. He leads the Majors in free passes by ten. He's allowing home runs at a much higher clip than any other full season in his career, a full 8.2% higher than his career mark of 11.4 HR/FB%. Or put simply, when you're making Dillon Gee look good, you're having an awful season.
Game Two - Saturday, 6:15 PM CDT
| Pitcher | G | IP | K | BB | ERA | FIP | xFIP | SIERA | fWAR | rWAR |
| Aaron Sanchez | 21 | 139.1 | 118 | 41 | 2.71 | 3.34 | 3.47 | 3.70 | 3.2 | 3.6 |
| Danny Duffy (L) | 31 | 108.2 | 126 | 23 | 2.98 | 3.20 | 3.46 | 3.07 | 2.5 | 3.0 |
In the marquee match-up of the series (and arguably the only one that looks like it's worth watching on paper), the Royals' best starting pitcher faces off against the Jays' best starter. Sanchez just passed his previous career high in innings pitched, leading Toronto brass to adopt a six-man rotation in an attempt to try to manage his increased usage while not taking the alternate route of moving him to the pen for the rest of the season. Owning the second-highest ground-ball rate in the majors - trailing only teammate Marcus Stroman - Sanchez has used his batted-ball outcomes to his advantage, yielding the eighth-lowest HR/9 amongst qualified starters in this new dong-crazy world.
Game Three - Sunday, 1:15 PM CDT
| Pitcher | G | IP | K | BB | ERA | FIP | xFIP | SIERA | fWAR | rWAR |
| Marcus Stroman | 22 | 142.1 | 114 | 36 | 4.74 | 3.82 | 3.42 | 3.58 | 2.3 | 0.1 |
| Yordano Ventura | 21 | 119.1 | 88 | 50 | 4.83 | 4.87 | 4.72 | 4.81 | 0.7 | 0.6 |
Unlike his fellow worm-murdering Blue Jay hurler, Stroman has not been enjoying similar luck in the dong limitation department. He is also suffering through a poor LOB% and a slightly below-average BABIP. Where Sanchez has been relatively fortunate, Stroman has been baseball's Job. He doesn't walk anyone, induces more grounders than any other starting pitcher, strikes out enough to hold a 13.1 K-BB%, yet he's got an ERA near 5.00 almost a full run higher than his FIP.
The Batsmen
| Name | Pos | PA | HR | R | RBI | SB | BA | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ | fWAR | rWAR |
| Jose Bautista | DH | 329 | 15 | 46 | 45 | 1 | .222 | .356 | .456 | .351 | 119 | 0.9 | 0.5 |
| Josh Donaldson | 3B | 479 | 27 | 89 | 76 | 6 | .299 | .408 | .587 | .417 | 164 | 6.2 | 6.1 |
| Edwin Encarnacion | 1B | 462 | 29 | 66 | 90 | 2 | .265 | .354 | .545 | .378 | 137 | 2.6 | 2.5 |
| Michael Saunders (L) | LF | 410 | 19 | 57 | 46 | 1 | .274 | .359 | .520 | .372 | 133 | 2.1 | 2.4 |
| Troy Tulowitzki | SS | 331 | 18 | 36 | 52 | 1 | .243 | .311 | .463 | .329 | 104 | 1.7 | 2.2 |
| Russell Martin | C | 336 | 8 | 37 | 40 | 1 | .238 | .337 | .360 | .310 | 91 | 0.8 | 0.6 |
| Melvin Upton Jr. | RF | 392 | 16 | 47 | 45 | 20 | .251 | .297 | .425 | .309 | 95 | 1.4 | 1.8 |
| Kevin Pillar | CF | 436 | 7 | 43 | 45 | 8 | .261 | .292 | .384 | .292 | 78 | 2.5 | 2.5 |
| Devon Travis | 2B | 223 | 7 | 31 | 26 | 3 | .279 | .323 | .442 | .329 | 104 | 1.6 | 2.0 |
| Bench | Pos | PA | HR | R | RBI | SB | BA | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ | fWAR | rWAR |
| Josh Thole (L) | C | 110 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 0 | .158 | .250 | .211 | .216 | 26 | -0.3 | -0.6 |
| Darwin Barney | IF | 242 | 3 | 26 | 16 | 2 | .266 | .315 | .360 | .294 | 80 | 1.0 | 1.5 |
| Justin Smoak (S) | 1B | 275 | 12 | 27 | 27 | 1 | .227 | .320 | .413 | .319 | 97 | 0.2 | 0.1 |
Stats through Wednesday, August 3
Headlined by reigning American League MVP Josh Donaldson, this Toronto lineup is stacked from top to bottom with only Jose Bautista and Russell Martin on pace for sub-2.0 WAR season of their starters. This should come as no surprise to Royals fans as the squad is only slightly different from the murderer's row that they faced in last year's ALCS, only now they've got a resurgent Melvin Upton Jr. and a healthy Michael Saunders.
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