Sunday Night Cyber Baseball Stream/Thread

Welcome to the first Sunday Night Cyber Baseball where the Kansas City Royals will be facing off against the Toronto Blue Jays. You all voted on this matchup (probably because the other options were the Tigers or the Mariners <blech>).

Quick recap of last game

The last game we simulated was against the Seattle Mariners in which the Royals brought the lumber. Merrifield, Salvy, and Soler all hit big-time dingers and the Royals overcame an early deficit to win, 7-4. They are now sitting at 3-3 on the year.

Brad Keller got the start for the Royals and went 5 innings while giving up 4 earned. He struck out 2 and walked 4 while giving up all 4 runs on Dan Vogelbach big flies in the 1st inning and 3rd inning.

“He’s a really great hitter.” said Keller of Vegelbach. “You win some and you lose some and sometimes you tie but that’s no fun so I’d rather one of the first two things happen than a tie because then you have to do it again and I’d just rather it be done but if I had to choose one of the first two things I’d rather win than lose, but certainly not tie.” (Shadow Brad Keller is really chatty apparently)

After Vogelbach’s visit to Dongtown in the 1st, many thought the game was over. The Royals responded by hanging 5 runs in the bottom half and it was a line drive homer to left from Whit that got the ball rolling. Mariners pitcher, Yusei Kikuchi, gave up 5 earned runs in 4.1IP while striking out 3 and walking 1, inflating his ERA to 5.78 in his first 2 starts of the season.

Keller was pulled in the 5th and gave way to the Royals’ rebuilt bullpen to protect the lead, which they did. Josh Staumont, Scott Barlow, Tim Hill, and Trevor Rosenthal combined to throw 4 scoreless innings while striking out 6 between them.

Leading up to tonight’s matchup

Here are the starting lineups:

Since the offensive onslaught of that game against the Mariners, the Royals have gone 4-4, going 1-1 against the Mariners, 2-1 against the Tigers, and 1-2 against the Blue Jays. Tonight’s pitching matchup is Jorge Lopez (2-0, 3.46 ERA) vs. Hyun-Jin Ryu (1-1, 4.26 ERA). Lopez has turned some heads in his 2 starts this season. In his debut against the Tigers, he went 7.0 innings allowing just 2 earned runs. His second start of the year was also against the Tigers where he added another 6 innings, this time allowing 3 earned runs. Lopez gets his first shot against a non-Tigers team tonight.

So far the offense has been pretty dormant overall, sporting a sluggish .402 slug% (good for 19th in the majors) and a .328 OBP (18th in the majors). Those numbers could be a lot worse if not for Salvy turning into a “WAY too early MVP candidate”. Along with his normal great defensive metrics, Salvy is also slashing .383/.423/.745 with 5 homers and 18 RBIs. I think that we can all agree that he looks very healthy after having missing all of last season.

With the left hander Ryu on the mound tonight, we’ll get to see the hot hitting Ryan McBroom out there at first base for the Royals. He’s seen only 22 at-bats this season but with those he’s slashing .455/.478/.545. When asked about his success at the plate, McBroom said “I like to hit.” Then when asked to elaborate more on that, McBroom continued, “Like, ya know, swinging...the...ya know...bat...and uh...making conta-GOOD contact...ya know. It’s just a lot of fun.”

Here’s hoping to seeing Boom Boom McBroom continue to have fun out there. We’re shooting for a 7:30 first pitch.

If you want to catch the shadow home opener, you can do so here.

Like always, you can view the embedded stream below or watch it via Twitch here. Interact with us here in the comments below or in the chat at Twitch.

After the game, stick around for some more action on MLB The Show 20 as I will face off against Joel Penfield from Royals Farm Report. Throw some questions at us (Royals related or not) and we’ll have some fun.