Know Your Enemy: Kansas City Royals 2.0

Some people are fans of the Royals. We here at SSHP are not. This is our series preview, so White Sox fans can know their enemy.

Your Enemy

Kansas City Royals.

We're back again with the Royals and their great managerial talent Mike Matheny. The Royals are currently sitting dead last in the division, after a handful of losses against the Cards, Reds, and Twins. 

They're making lukewarm moves before the trade deadline by sending Brett Phillips to sunny Tampa Bay in exchange for Lucius Fox, who I'm told is in fact a baseball player and not Batman's tech guy. 

The team ERA is 4.30, which isn't the worst out of the 15 AL teams, but it sure isn't the best. The team batting average is a solid .244, no doubt helped by the seven home runs that Jorge Soler has hit so far this year. 

Whit Merrifield continues to be the best player on a bad team with a solid .301 average, .351 OBP, 19 RBIs, and five home runs. 

Enemy’s current record

12-19

Dead last in the AL Central. The Royals completely collapsed in the ninth against the Cards on Wednesday night, allowing St. Louis to score four runs in walk-off fashion. The Sox have won nine of the last 10 so they shouldn't have any difficulty running through the Royals as well. 

The Royals are captaining the struggle bus. They're the only team in the AL Central that hasn't made it to .400. Supposedly there's talent, and maybe if they had actual good management they'd be tipping .400. But it hasn't shown yet, and that's to the White Sox's benefit.

Enemy pitchers

Friday's matchup is Danny Duffy (currently the only confirmed pitcher for the Royals) vs. Reynaldo López. When are teams going to learn not to start a LHP against this offense? Duffy hasn't pitched in about a week and went five innings in his last start, allowing four hits and a run. López had a tentative start against the Cubs, in his first back since injury, allowing two runs and one hit over 3 ⅓ innings. He was limited to 50 pitches, but felt he could have done more. Expect Gio González to jump out of the phone booth in the pen to rescue Reynaldo by the fourth inning or so. 

Saturday we're looking at Dylan Cease vs. TBD. Cease had a good showing against the Cubs, despite Kyle Schwarber's two-run homer in the sixth. In his last five starts, he's sitting pretty at 4-1 with a 2.15 ERA. 

Sunday isn't announced yet for either side but I did see it rumored that old friend Brad Keller was starting, in which case I hope everyone bat flips on him no matter what their at-bat looks like. Dane Dunning would be the best guess for the White Sox start.

Keys to the series

Homers and bat flips — keep up the offense, and we won't have any problems. Taunt them and get in their heads. Make sure we have solid defense behind anyone on the mound, and maintaining the solid offense is the way to go. That shouldn't be too much trouble, because the Royals bullpen has barely been showing up this season. 

The addition of Jarrod Dyson gives the team more speed on the basepaths so getting on base in the late innings and putting pressure on the Kansas City defense can only lead to good things for the White Sox. 

Are there more back-to-back homers in our future? Hopefully!