Game Of The Week Preview: Orioles At Royals 4/24/16

The weekend series’ finale between the Baltimore Orioles(11-5) and the World Series Champion Kansas City Royals (11-6) will take place on Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium but, before the focus turns to the starting lineups for the rubber match, take a look at how the series has gone so far.

Friday Night (4/22/16): Orioles 2 Royals 4

The Royals took the first game of this series as their offense supported Chris Young’s strong outing. Mike Moustakas hit a homerun and two doubles with 3 RBIs. The right-hander worked six innings allowing two runs on four hits, walking one and striking out an impressive ten batters, a promising start after three lackluster outings so far in 2016. For the Orioles, a RBI single by J.J. Hardy after a Mark Trumbo double put them on the board.  Manny Machado helped tacked another one on the board with a solo homer in the top of the sixth on a fly ball to center field.

Saturday Night (4/23/16): Orioles 8 Royals 3

The O’s turned the tables on the Royals in the second game of the series as they took the win to even the series at one. In the top of the sixth Chris Davis was able to hit a solo homerun off of Kansas City’s Kris Medlen  to give Baltimore the early lead and Hyun Soo Kim hit a RBI single to make it a 2-0 ballgame. In the bottom of the second, Kansas City tied the game at two with a two run homerun by Salvador Perez. Medlen continued to get hit hard by the Orioles, lasting just three and two-third innings allowing seven runs on nine hits; walking three and striking out two. Tyler Wilson worked five innings for Baltimore allowing three runs on six hits; striking out two.

Game 3 Pitching Matchup:

Mike Wright ( 5.73 ERA, 1-1):  The right-hander will make his third start of the season and just his fourteenth game of his Major League career on Sunday afternoon against the Royals. He is currently 1-1 in his first two starts this season with a 5.73 ERA. His first start against the Red Sox he earned the win despite allowing four runs on five hits in five innings. In his last start last week against the Toronto Blue Jays he struggled at times to gain momentum as the O’s fell to the Jays. In that start he worked six innings, allowing three runs on six hits. Since Wright just made his Major League debut last May he doesn’t have that much experience against a lot of lineups including the Orioles but Lorenzo Cain seemed to have figured out his pithcing style quite quickly, he currently has a .667 batting average with two homers and two RBIs in just three at-bats.

Yordano Ventura (2.81 ERA, 1-0): Ventura will be making his fourth start of the season in this finale against the Orioles. He received a no-decision in each of his first two starts in 2016 against the Minnesota Twins and Houston Astros and then earned his first win last Tuesday night against the Detroit Tigers. He has struggled against a few Orioles at times, Manny Machado has hit .429 against the righty in seven at-bats, J.J. Hardy has hit .500in eight at-bats and Mark Trumbo and Matt Wieters both have hit over .300 against Ventura.

Possible Lineups:

Baltimore Orioles–

Joey Rickard, LF

Manny Machado, 3B

Andrew Jones, CF

Chris Davis, 1B

Mark Trumbo, RF

Matt Wieters, C

J.J. Hardy, SS

Jonathan Schoop, 2B

Pedro Alvarez, DH

Kansas City Royals–

Alcides Escobar, SS

Mike Moustakas, 3B

Lorenzo Cain, CF

Eric Hsomer, 1B

Kendrys Morales, DH

Alex Gordon, LF

Salvador Perez, C

Omar Infante, 2B

Jarrod Dyson, RF