With the series tied at one game apiece, the Royals and Astros will now take on the third game at Minute Maid Park on Sunday afternoon.
(mlb.com)
With the American League Division Series tied at one game apiece, the Kansas City Royals and Houston Astros now will meet at Minute Maid Park, starting on Sunday afternoon for the third game of the series. After the Royals fans packed Kauffman Stadium in the first two games of the series, the Astros will try and use their own home field advantage with a sea of orange.
The Matchup:
The Kansas City Royals will send RHP Edinson Volquez (3.55, 13-9) to the mound for the third of the best of five games series. Volquez will try and build off of the momentum from the second game when the Royals came from behind to tie the game and then a RBI single by Ben Zobrist pushed Kansas City ahead of the Astros to tie the series. The 32 year old relies on his sinker for most of his pitches and has a disappointing 0-2 record in the postseason with a 12.15 ERA. In terms of facing the Astros’ lineup, Carlos Gomez has hit .290 in 31 career at-bats against Volquez and both Colby Ramsus and Luis Valbuena have each hit .300 in ten career at-bats.
The Houston Astros will counter with their ace LHP Dallas Keuchel (2.48, 20-8) who in his last outing in the American League Wild Card game against the New York Yankees, the lefty pitched six shutout innings to help the Astros advance to the ALDS. The second half of the season Keuchel went 9-4 with a 2.85 ERA while using his 4-seam fastball the majority of the time with an average velocity of 90. Keuchel’s history against the Royals’ the Alex Rios has hit .385 with 4 RBIs and Kendrys Morales has hit .375 against the lefty.
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