Game CXL Thread: Royals at Twins

There are a lot of people who seem confident that next year’s squad can easily avoid 100 losses even as the current teams seems destined to break the franchise record for losses. They point to the fact that the team has played better, recently, with the young guns finally getting a chance to show their stuff. But watching games like last night’s reminds that these guys still have a long ways to go to being good.

If the Royals manage to avoid losing 100 games next year Jorge Lopez probably will need to pitch more like he did against Baltimore than how he’s pitched in his other big league starts. And if you want to begin to dream a little about next year’s team then you definitely want to see another good performance from Lopez, today, against a slightly better team in the Minnesota Twins.

The twins will counter with their staff ace, Jose Berrios. The good news for Royals fans hoping for a win today is that Berrios has struggled against his mid-western, small market rivals. In seven starts against KC 4.99 he has allowed 22 runs while striking out only 28 in 39.2 innings. To give you an idea of how bad that is his career average is nearly one strikeout per inning; against KC his rate is half that.

The Royals are currently 8.5 games “ahead” of the Padres for the second overall pick in next year’s draft. You may all feel comfortable rooting for a win, today.

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