Game Thread: Royals at Rays

For as much as last night’s game ended on a sour note, the Royals have been able to show that they can compete with one of the league’s top teams. Brady Singer will hope to continue the dominant starting pitching in the first two games of the series as he makes his first career start in his home state.

Brad Keller and Mike Minor have been able to shut down the defending American League Champions in their starts Tuesday and Wednesday combining for 12 IP and each allowing one earned run.

This game will be an important one for Brady Singer having grown up two hours away in Leesburg, FL from Tropicana Field. We all have seen that Singer is an emotional guy/pitcher (insert rain or Angel Hernandez video), so I can imagine he will be battling some emotion today with his attachment to the area.

On the mound, Singer will need to improve his command which has been shaky of late. Allowing at least two walks in his last 5 starts. The young right-hander needs to continue working on being more efficient to stay in the game longer. He averages just 5 innings a start this season.

The Royals will face Shane McClanahan, a rookie out of South Florida. McClanahan was also a member of the deep 2018 college pitcher draft. He was taken just 13 picks after Singer at 31st overall.

In five starts, the left-hander is 1-0 with a 4.03 ERA. McClanahan has only entered the 6th inning once going 5.1 IP against the Mets where he got his first career win.

The fun part about this match up between two young pitchers is neither team has a single batter who has faced the opposing starter in an MLB game.

The Royals offense was silenced for a vast majority of the game last night, but in large part to the dominance that Rays ace, Tyler Glasnow, has been so far this year. Kansas City did push the game to extra innings thanks to an Andrew Benintendi home run in the ninth inning. The left-fielder is very familiar playing at the unique Tropicana Field due to his many years with Boston.

The first pitch of this series finale will be at 2:10 CDT.

Line Ups