With their record standing at 9 wins and 2 losses, the Astros have a winning percentage of .818. They are leading the West Division. The Astros are playing well at the moment, having a 3-game winning streak going. Their number of runs scored of 70 ranks 1st in the American League, and their .297 batting average ranks 1st. On the other side of the diamond, they have given up 55 runs (13th) with their starters compiling an ERA of 5.37, which ranks 12th. Their bullpen sports an ERA of 3.77, ranking tied for 10th.
Here are the projected pitching matchups, our pitchers listed first:
RHP S. Lugo (1-1, 7.20 ERA) vs RHP R. Blanco (1-0, 0.87 ERA)
LHP C. Ragans (1-0, 0.66 ERA) vs RHP C. Javier (0-2, 18.69 ERA)
RHP M. Wacha (0-2, 3.77 ERA) vs RHP H. Brown (1-0, 4.66 ERA)
The top 5 players on their team are:
1. LF Yordan Alvarez (Age: 26, Overall: 80, Potential: 80)
2. SP Framber Valdez (30, 70, 70)
3. CL Josh Hader (30, 70, 70)
4. 2B Jose Altuve (33, 65, 65)
5. RF Kyle Tucker (27, 65, 65)
Game Summary – April 9th – Royals Shutout Astros 6-0, Lugo Now 2-1
The Kansas City Royals picked up a win at Kauffman Stadium, dropping the Houston Astros, 6-0. Seth Lugo was the difference-maker. The win has Kansas City at 5-6. Lugo's performance can only be described as masterful. He notched 4 strikeouts in 8 innings while allowing 5 hits. He faced 28 batters, threw 93 pitches with 68 of them being strikes. Lugo goes to 2-1 on the year with 9 strikeouts. He showed his old hand prowess!
Code:
Player W-L IP H R ER BB K HR PI ERA
S. Lugo 2-1 8.0 5 0 0 0 4 0 93 4.00
"All in all, I thought Seth pitched a fine game for us tonight," said Kansas City manager Todd "BigP" Pollard.
GAME NOTES
Player of the Game: Seth Lugo
Ballpark: Kauffman Stadium
Weather: Clear skies (50 degrees), wind blowing right to left at 12 mph
Start Time: 6:40 PM CT
Time: 2:47
Attendance: 17424
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Game Summary – April 10th – Royals Win 3-2 Walk-Off
The Houston Astros could not turn a fine performance from pitcher Cristian Javier into a win. Instead, the Kansas City Royals prevailed, 3-2. Javier threw 7.2 innings, allowing 2 runs. Kansas City reliever Chris Stratton was the winner. His record is now 1-1. The losing pitcher was Ryan Pressly. The win puts Kansas City at 6-6.
Drew Waters was the walk-off hero for Kansas City. With the game tied in the bottom of the ninth inning, the Royals right fielder hit a dramatic run-scoring single to send the teams home.
"The fans went nuts at the end," Waters said.
This was a nice win. However, our boy Ragans is struggling with his control. He only pitched 4.2 innings but threw 95 pitches, walking 5 batters. I wanted to get him a QS, but with his fragility at such a young age, 26, I’d hate to wreck him before he even gets his career started. Plus, his relationship with PC Sweeney is so poor, I don’t think he’s getting any help there at all either.
Code:
Player IP H R ER BB K HR PI ERA
C. Ragans 4.2 4 2 2 5 4 1 95 1.47
His character is all positive, and he’s a sparkplug personality, so he’s got the locker room, and I think the fans are going to love him. We still have 3 option years on him, and he won’t come into his arbitration years until 2026, so there’s some time to figure things out. We will have to try and get his control better come this off-season and give him some coaching that he can relate to.
GAME NOTES
Player of the Game: Cristian Javier
Ballpark: Kauffman Stadium
Weather: Cloudy (53 degrees), wind blowing out to right at 11 mph
Start Time: 6:40 PM CT
Time: 3:09 Attendance: 19333
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Game Summary – April 11th – Royals Score Late, Clip Astros, 4-3
The Houston Astros got a superb performance from pitcher Hunter Brown, but the Kansas City Royals still won the game, 4-3. Brown threw 7.1 innings, allowing 3 runs. The loss makes Houston 9-5. Had MJ Melendez not delivered a key base hit in the bottom of the eighth, the outcome might have been different. Instead, with two down and runners on 1st and 2nd, Melendez hit a run-scoring single. That made the score 4-3, in favor of the Royals.
"Honestly, I'm not frustrated," said Houston manager Joe Espada. "The effort was great."
GAME NOTES
Player of the Game: Hunter Brown
Ballpark: Kauffman Stadium
Weather: Partly Cloudy (56 degrees), wind blowing out to center at 11 mph
Start Time: 1:10 PM CT
Time: 3:09
Attendance: 20333
I’m extremely pleased with this win to close out the series in a sweep. We’ve figured out a couple of things and still got work to do, but we’re moving in the right direction. We’re now in second place in our division standings at .538, just a game and a half behind Detroit. Our win streak of 4 is what I’m most excited about, but we’ve got some tough games ahead of us on the road. A 3-game series against the NL East NY Mets, then it’s back to the AL Central for a 3-game series against our divisional rivals, the Chicago White Sox. We’ve already split a series against them earlier this year, so we’re going to try and better that this time around.
We decided that with Blanco coming off his IL stint for a herniated disc in his back, to put him back at CF since we started the season with him, and my call to bring Isbel up has not proven as fruitful as I’d hoped. If our trainer, Kyle Turner, was any worse with back injuries (he’s not good either), I’d have second thoughts about bringing Blanco back so soon without rehab, but I’ll risk it since it’s early in the season. He’s also the fastest speedster we have on the team. There’s time to adjust if we need to, and this will give Isbel some more time to work on his bat in Omaha and put himself into the regular lineup after the all-star break or the September roster.
Now there’s another school of thought that would say I do the opposite of this and keep Isbel up and let Blanco rehab because of his slightly older age and decreasing value. I guess it’s a flip of the coin for me, only seeing a small sample size to compare either player. Isbel has a slightly better defense, but Blanco seems to have the better bat and wRC+ playing in the big leagues over the past several seasons.
We’re 1st in defensive efficiency at .727 (although the errors are killing us!) but 13th in OPS at .665 and 14th in wOBA at .284. So, yeah, better bats are what we need right now. It’s a toss-up, honestly, and both Isbel and Blanco are battling for the position in my mind, but either of them is a trade piece.
Overall, I’m pleased with this series win. The last 2 games, we managed to find the bats and get guys around the bases in the late innings to win, so it’s a start. A large part of that is that we are leading the league in stolen bases at 26, so we are putting guys in scoring position and then getting them home. I called for some hit-and-run plays at the right time, which gave us the series win.
For now, I get prepared for the road games, the draft pool is released tomorrow, and hopefully, we come back on the plus side of each series.