Game CXXXIV Thread: The Royals of Kansas City versus the Twins of Minnesota

With a chance to gain another game in the Wild Card race presenting itself, the Royals will place their hopes in the hands of Onelki Garcia to shut down a Twins offense that had the second-most home runs in baseball in August. Garcia will make his first major-league start, earning a trip back to the Majors after being released by the White Sox organization in Spring Training of 2016 and pitching last year in the Mexican League.

Garcia pitched passably well in the minors for the Royals this season and will make the start largely because he is one of the few men on the 40-man roster who is actually able to start, with Danny Duffy, Nathan Karns, and Miguel Almonte on the DL and Trevor Cahill just coming off the DL but without any rehab appearances in the minors. Garcia fell on the grenade for the Royals last week when Eric Skoglund got lit up and had to leave after just 1.1 innings while being responsible for seven earned runs. Garcia threw 5.2 innings in mop-up duty, apparently enough to warrant a chance to start.

Once a highly thought of prospect in the Dodgers organization, the southpaw will attempt to show he belongs in the bigs.

The Royals offense will face a man who should be an easy matchup—Kyle “Cy” Gibson, owner of a 5.59 ERA—but who never seems to be a pushover for the Royals.

The Royals will align themselves thusly:

These will be the Twins:

This game will be a WAR!