Twins-Royals Preview: Let's Get Some Wins

[Sherry Cerny]

Can the Twins get another series win versus the Royals? (They better.)

Image courtesy of Image courtesy of © Rob Schumacher/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK

The Twins just finished a series with the Yankees and head right into a homestand with Kansas City. The Twins finally took the season series for the first time in 22 seasons against the Yankees, bolstering the confidence they needed after a lousy series loss to the Nationals. They didn't sweep the Yankees, but they certainly showed their intention to play past the regular season. 

Fun Fact: Royals Salvador Perez has the most home runs of any visitor to Target Field, with 20.

Weather Factor: Looking ahead, bundle up a bit because even if it makes it into the 50s, it will be partly cloudy. But don't let that stop you from joining Twins Daily at Friday's game! There are small threats of rain, but mainly an increase in temperature. Like the Twins bats, the weather is trending in the right direction.  

Pitching Probables
Game 1 – Thursday, April 27th, 2023 – 6:40pm CDT –  In the series' first game, the Twins will send Tyler Mahle (1-2, 3.32ERA) to the mound to face off against RHP Zach Grienke (0-4, 4.61ERA). The Royals had a rough 2022 season, and it doesn't look like this season will be any better. Grienke has offered them depth in their rotation, but he has not recorded a win yet. In his last outing against the Los Angeles Angels, he pitched five innings but recorded more earned runs (4) than strikeouts (2). 

Game 2 – Friday, April 28th, 2023 – 3:10pm CDT - In game two of the series, the Twins will send RHP Pablo Lopez (1-2, 3.00ERA) to the mound. Lopez had an off-game against the Nationals early last week, allowing five runs in four innings but still striking out six, in his first game after signing a four-year extension with the club. The Twins hope that Lopez signing the four-year extension gives the club an "Ace," He has shown that even in his tough innings, he can get out of jams. 

The Royals will start RHP Jordan Lyles (0-4, 4.88ERA), who has no wins on the season. Lyles has struggled this season, but in his appearance against the Twins this year on April 1st, he held them to two runs over 5 1/3 innings. Since then, he's allowed four or more runs in each appearance. 

Game 3 - Saturday, April 20th, 2023 – 1:10pm CDT - The Twins are sending RHP Sonny Gray (3-0, 0.62ERA) to the mound on one of the cloudy days, but Sonny doesn't let anything bring him down. Gray, who owns the best ERA in MLB, has been dominant this season. The last time he faced the Royals, he went five innings, and though he walked four, no runs scored, and he and the Twins bullpen shut out Kansas City. 

The Royals will start RHP Brad Keller (2-2, 3.96ERA). Keller is a 27-year-old right-hander who had a decent start to his career, posting a promising 3.50 ERA over his first three years in the majors. But he slipped to a 5.24 ERA over the last two years, and while his he ERA is 3.96 this year, he has failed to get past four innings in his last two starts, and had almost as many walk (19) as strikeouts (20).

Game 4 - Sunday, April 20th, 2023 – 1:10pm CDT - To close out the series against the Royals, the Twins are sending RHP Joe Ryan (5-0, 2.81ERA) against RHP Brady Singer (2-2, 6.67 ERA). Ryan is putting up All-Star numbers and leads the American League in wins. Brady Singer had his best outing of the season against the Diamondbacks in his last start. Wanting to set the tone early, he only walked one batter, gave up one earned run, and struck out five. The Twins' offense can't let Singer's ERA fool them into thinking this is an easy win. 

Prediction Time! What's your prediction for this series? Can the Twins totally dominate and get another series sweep against the Royals? Will the bats stay hot? Let's go, Twins Territory!

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[mikelink45]

Can we beat a bad team?

[tarheeltwinsfan]

Twins win 3 of 4 games against KC.

[ashbury]

Twins sweep, barring injury.

[stringer bell]

4 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Twins sweep, barring injury.

That's your default prediction?

[Squirrel]

2 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

Can we beat a bad team?

I know. We got swept by them before.

oh, wait …

[ashbury]

13 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

That's your default prediction?

Against a team like the Royals, yes.  Other teams, depends on my mood. 

Mostly I'm just trying to bar as many injuries as possible.  Not sure it's working.

[Squirrel]

43 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Against a team like the Royals, yes.  Other teams, depends on my mood. 

Mostly I'm just trying to bar as many injuries as possible.  Not sure it's working.

My first thought was to say, ‘Hush, you are jinxing things!’

[Jocko87]

3 hours ago, stringer bell said:

That's your default prediction?

This should set up as well as any series all year.  3 out of 4 might be bittersweet.

[big dog]

Mahle, Lopez, Gray, Ryan.

I've never seen any Twins rotation that comes remotely close to that, in 55 years of paying attention. Wow.

[Whitey333]

I'm expecting a sweep.  I know that's expecting a lot but if we are a contending team maybe we should finally play like one consistently.  Anything less than winning 3 of 4 should be considered a failure.  The two s have only played slightly under 500 ball over the last 20+ games.  Go try to win every game.  No more throw away games like the last Yankee game.  Go Twins.

[mikelink45]

36 minutes ago, big dog said:

Mahle, Lopez, Gray, Ryan.

I've never seen any Twins rotation that comes remotely close to that, in 55 years of paying attention. Wow.

Kaat, Perry, Grant, Pascual - but that was more than 55 years.

[chinmusic]

36 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

1 hour ago, big dog said:

 

Kaat, Perry, Grant, Pascual - but that was more than 55 years.

Ok. So they all played on the '65 World Series championship team, and Kaat's in the Hall. 

If the Twins win the WS this year, I believe there'd be a good case for comparison.

[weitz41]

I'll go with Twins take 3 out of 4. The Royals are bad, but still an MLB team.

Then follow this series with a struggling even worse White Sox and the Guardian get away games at Boston and Yankees. Great time for a win streak.

[JD-TWINS]

1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

Kaat, Perry, Grant, Pascual - but that was more than 55 years.

Perry wasn’t near the pitcher he would become when Pasqual was around……Dean Chance threw a no hitter in there and had at least one solid year.

[mikelink45]

4 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Perry wasn’t near the pitcher he would become when Pasqual was around……Dean Chance threw a no hitter in there and had at least one solid year.

1965 

1. Pascual 9 - 3 (injured during the year)
2. Perry 12 - 7
3. Kaat 18 - 11
4. Grant 21 - 7

[JD-TWINS]

It’s hard to imagine that we can’t score 3-4 runs per game v. these arms……..it’s hard to imagine giving up more than 3 runs with our arms. Mahle’s start tonight will set the tone.

If we split, a disappointment, but we’d be 16-13 for the first month……..17-12 would be an amazing start

16 wins out of 29 games projects to 90 wins for the Season.

[Blyleven2011]

2 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

Kaat, Perry, Grant, Pascual - but that was more than 55 years.

That was along time ago but those were the days of good pitching and good hitting and alot of fight in the team to win ,,,

How many walk off wins can you remember  ???

[Blyleven2011]

I like the first sentence as a question  ...

Can the twins get another series win , and I like the answer even better  ( they better ) ...

Yes they better  , no blaming the weather as temperatures are rising  , now the batting averages should  rise above the mendoza line  , pathetic that Correa is batting 200 ...

[mikelink45]

11 minutes ago, Blyleven2011 said:

That was along time ago but those were the days of good pitching and good hitting and alot of fight in the team to win ,,,

How many walk off wins can you remember  ???

It is interesting that you ask that.   I am listening to Jim Kaat's book - Good as Gold - and in it he made two fascinating statements - 

1. 1965 is the last series in which every starting pitcher threw a complete game
2. Harmon Killebrew hit a key, game winning HR for a key game in the extra innings, but we did not keep track of walk off hits - we did not even have the phrase in those days.  In a July 11, 1965 game that was a come from behind 6 - 5 game against the Yankees.  Tovar had another extra inning hit. He said Killebrew must have fouled off 5 -6 pitches, but we did not count them in those days. This is a paraphrasing of Kaat's words. 

[Blyleven2011]

3 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

It is interesting that you ask that.   I am listening to Jim Kaat's book - Good as Gold - and in it he made two fascinating statements - 

1. 1965 is the last series in which every starting pitcher threw a complete game
2. Harmon Killebrew hit a key, game winning HR for a key game in the extra innings, but we did not keep track of walk off hits - we did not even have the phrase in those days.  In a July 11, 1965 game that was a come from behind 6 - 5 game against the Yankees.  Tovar had another extra inning hit. He said Killebrew must have fouled off 5 -6 pitches, but we did not count them in those days. This is a paraphrasing of Kaat's words. 

Thank you , good memories  !!! 

[Squirrel]

4 hours ago, big dog said:

Mahle, Lopez, Gray, Ryan.

I've never seen any Twins rotation that comes remotely close to that, in 55 years of paying attention. Wow.

Yep ... why I tune in regularly instead of just ... whenever ... it's a very, very nice change.

[jmlease1]

3 hours ago, weitz41 said:

I'll go with Twins take 3 out of 4. The Royals are bad, but still an MLB team.

Then follow this series with a struggling even worse White Sox and the Guardian get away games at Boston and Yankees. Great time for a win streak.

I think this is right. Even an utter trash fire of a major league baseball club is going to win 40 games from somewhere (which is pretty much the pace the Royals are on) and while I'd love to collect a sweep, it'd be no shame to take 3 of 4.

KC's offense has been pretty rotten, but they're probably not as bad as it's been so far. The rotation isn't good, but it's not horrible (Singer has been their worse performer to date, but he's their best starter). Twins will have to be patient at the plate and not try to win the series on one swing.

We are definitely sending out a good collection of starters to try and shut down the Royals! Good opportunity, be fun to see if the players can execute.

[jimbo92107]

4 hours ago, big dog said:

Mahle, Lopez, Gray, Ryan.

I've never seen any Twins rotation that comes remotely close to that, in 55 years of paying attention. Wow.

Agreed. Even without top Maeda, Twins have plenty of fallbacks in Bailey Ober, Louie Varland, SWR, etc. Heck, even Brent Headrick looks like he's got starter stuff. Ober has looked as stingy as ever, and Varland struck out 8 Yankees in his appearance. 

I expect to see Ober plugged into Maeda's spot, while Varland comes in to give one of the other starters an occasional break. 

[joefish]

1 hour ago, Blyleven2011 said:

Thank you , good memories  !!! 

Except we lost in 65 and I am still pist off about it!

Jk

[Minny505]

3 hours ago, weitz41 said:

I'll go with Twins take 3 out of 4. The Royals are bad, but still an MLB team.

Then follow this series with a struggling even worse White Sox and the Guardian get away games at Boston and Yankees. Great time for a win streak.

Agreed...cuz BASEBALL!

And becuase BASEBALL! we lose Saturday. It just seems too appropriate.

[chinmusic]

23 minutes ago, joefish said:

Except we lost in 65 and I am still pist off about it!

Yeah. Tough to beat Koufax!

 

[2wins87]

For all the early season grumbling, this team is looking pretty good.  Cherry picking the start date a bit, they've scored 5.25 runs per game over their last 8 contests.  Not everyone is clicking yet, but the offense does seem to be coming around fine.

The way the pitching lines up, I think they must be relatively heavy favorites in every game of this series.  Of course the way probability works they are probably still much more likely to go 3 and 4 than sweep.  Unless one of the starters has a bad day, I still feel like this team is ready for a sweep.

[Doctor Gast]

I expect a sweep. Now that Polanco is back, he has lit a fire under the line up. Even when Polanco wasn't even in the line up. Twins scored 6 runs in each of the NYY games, so I expect at least the same here. With the rotation of Mahle. Lopez, Gray & Ryan the Royals don't have a chance. Even if Baldelli puts all subs on the last day. Will we see Kiriloff? I hope so.

[mickster]

4 hours ago, weitz41 said:

I'll go with Twins take 3 out of 4. The Royals are bad, but still an MLB team.

Then follow this series with a struggling even worse White Sox and the Guardian get away games at Boston and Yankees. Great time for a win streak.

Don't need a sweep - just win series as that is the key to a successful season