Outside of Toronto, the Texas Rangers may be the biggest disappointment here in the early part of the season—at least in the American League. With a crumbling bullpen and offense missing Adrian Beltre, they haven’t been able to keep their heads afloat. A Kansas City Royals team that doesn’t have the bullpen it used to and is missing a bat offensively could provide Texas with an opportunity to get back on course in a four game weekend series.
This series will be contested from Thursday, April 20, 2017 through Sunday, April 23, 2017 at Globe Life Park in Arlington.
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Pitching Matchups
The series will kick off on Thursday with the Royals sending their ace to the mound in Danny Duffy against the $10-million man from the offseason: Andrew Cashner. Many felt Cashner was over paid, but he’s had some past success and Texas needed some extra support in the middle of the rotation, but his first start back from injury left plenty to be desired. Duffy, on the other hand, has been very good, particularly in his last start, going seven scoreless with just three hits allowed against the Angels.
After the series opener, the Royals will send their collection of back-end starter at the Rangers with Nathan Karns kicking things off on Friday. He’ll get the honor of trying to out duel Cole Hamels.
Hamels is one of the few sure things the Rangers have going from them on the mound. After a rough spring, he’s been okay to start the year. He’s still getting his feet wet, but he’s pitching three games, going 18 innings, allowing nine runs—seven earned—on 15 hits and seven walks. He’s been a bit wild, but has kept his team in the game, leaving all three starts with the lead. Unfortunately for him, he’s yet to factor into a decision.
Karns, meanwhile, has struggled with his command, too. He’s walked six in 12.1 innings and is getting into plenty of trouble with too many base runners. He’s given up six runs so far and is what he is a serviceable fifth start and swingman in the pen, nothing more. Unfortunately, he matches up with a top tier arm.
Outside of Duffy, the Royals’ best starter may be Ian Kennedy. He certainly pitched like it his last start, going eight innings of scoreless baseball against the Angels, giving up just two hits and two walks while striking out 10. He did go 111 pitches so that could impact him after not topping 100 in his first two starts.
Nevertheless, Kennedy has a pretty favorable matchup on Saturday against A.J. Griffin who is 2-0, but got a bit of luck. He’s given up seven runs and allowed three homers in 15.1 innings. He doesn’t provide much length which is a huge issue given the Rangers’ bullpen struggles.
Lastly, Sunday’s series finale will pin Texas’ right-hander Yu Darvish against the Royals’ Jason Hammel.
Hammel has been a very good first-half pitcher the last few years, but has run out of steam late in the season. By that logic, he should be pretty good right now, but his first three starts were just okay. He’s allowed eight runs and seven walks in 15.2 innings though he’s yet to give up a homer. He gave up only one run in six innings his last time out against the Giants so he could be rounding into form.
As for Darvish, he’s had good success in limited action against the Royals in his career, but is coming off a poor outing against the A’s his last time out, giving up four runs. Still, over four starts, the Rangers’ righty has a 3.28 ERA and 23 strikeouts in 24.2 innings.
Home Run or Bust
Neither the Rangers nor the Royals have a high OPS so far, but Texas has out homered the Royals 21 to 16. For Texas, most of the runs are scoring on the homers. Adrian Beltre is one of the team’s more clutch hitters, but he’s still sidelined. Meanwhile, Nomar Mazara and Elvis Andrus are the only regulars hitting over .222.
Mazara is slugging, too. He leads the team with four homers and 17 RBIs, but behind him are four others with at least three homers.
Mike Napoli was brought in to help lengthen the lineup, but he’s hitting .158 with a team leading 20 strikeouts, tied with Beltre’s replacement at third: Joey Gallo. Gallo’s provided a few moonshots that’ve been fun to watch, but he’s hitting .188 yet still ranks third on the team in OPS amongst players with at least 15 at bats.
The Royals offense similarly only has a few hitters swinging well right now. Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain and Salvador Perez are all hitting over .300 and have 12 homers amongst them. The rest of the lineup is silent. Brandon Moss has a .592 as Kendrys Morales’ replacement and Eric Hosmer is feeling the pressure of trying to be the man in the middle. He’s never been a huge homer bat, but he’s hitting .204.
Finding Relief
For Texas, the main thing holding this team back early has been the bullpen which has a 5.89 ERA behind the three blown saves by Sam Dyson. Had those three games gone differently, we’d be looking at an above-.500 squad.
Dyson is now on the disabled list and while there are questions to whether his right-hand contusion is really more of a bruised ego than anything else, he’s out of the picture for a time while Keona Kela has gotten promoted to add a bit more depth to the pen.
With Dyson out, Matt Bush is the new closer. Keep eyes on him. He’s not far removed from prison so maybe that helps him stay calm on the mound, giving him some perspective, but the flame thrower, despite an age of 31, is relatively inexperienced. He does have the stuff, but can he ultimately close the door and provide the Rangers some relief in the back of the pen? If not, there’s also Jeremy Jeffress available and he has closed. Simply removing Dyson could help relieve some of the pressure on the hitters and starters who likely were beginning to feel like they needed to do more and more to have a chance to win.
Over on the Royals’ side, Kansas City had long taken for granted that they had an elite bullpen. The pen isn’t what it once was and has already let them down this year.
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