Game Thread: Royals at Red Sox

You know who everyone wants to play when they are struggling to score runs? The third best hitting team (in terms of OPS) in the majors.

Tonight is game 1 of a four game series for the Royals in Boston where they face the surging and AL East leading Red Sox. The Red Sox are feeling good about themselves after a sweep of their rivals, the Yankees over the weekend.

Royals are sending Danny Duffy to the mound for his first start since his season debut in the bullpen Friday against the Rangers.

Duffy recently joined the ten year MLB service time club, all with the Royals which means he can veto any trade. This most likely will not prevent teams from calling about possible trades for the 32 year-old coming up in the next month; who knows one of those callers could be the Red Sox.

The veteran left-hander has had a very impressive season even with dealing with a left forearm flexor strain that landed him on the IL. Through 44.2 innings this year, Duffy has just a 1.81 ERA.

Due to the forearm injury, his last two outings have been very short and I would expect today to be a similar story, just maybe not as short.

On the mound for the Red Sox is Garrett Richards who is 4-5 with a 4.74 ERA. His last outing against Tampa Bay only lasted 1.2 innings allowing 5 runs; two via the long ball.

The big story offensively for the Royals is the major league debut for Emmanuel Rivera at third base tonight. Rivera is hitting .282 with 14 bombs in AAA this season. The 24 year old from Puerto Rico was a 19th round pick by the Royals back in 2015.

Also, this is awesome.

Line Ups