Reds @ Royals Series Preview: Singer Get Ready

The Royals are back in Kansas City for another inter-league red versus blue matchup. This red team is the most red team that’s ever been read, on top of being baseball’s oldest team: the Cincinnati Reds. They are presently 26-28, 6.5 games back in the NL Central and 4.5 games out of a Wild Card berth, but they also have a +25 run differential and a Pythagorean record of 30-24. They’ve been mid, but they’ve also held their own and should be looked at as another tough opponent.

Stat tables are courtesy of Baseball-Reference. Other numbers are courtesy of FanGraphs and Pitcher List; due to me writing these previews overnight, some rankings and numbers might not have been updated from the previous day’s games, but the differences (if any) shouldn’t be too important.

Cincinnati Reds, On Offense

• The Reds technically have one of the worst offenses, as their 94 wRC+ ranks 24th. That said, a 98 wRC+ would put them in 15th while the 25th-ranked team has an 87 wRC+. It might not be a great offense, but it’s at least a tier above the bottom.
• Somehow, the Reds are a much better road team with a 100 wRC+ and a .244 / .325 / .389 slash line.
• Either way, Cincinnati is 10th in walk percentage, with a 9.3% walk rate. On the road, this rate is 10.1% which is the 3rd best.
• The Reds also strike out a lot, having the 4th highest strikeout rate at 23.7%. They actually strike out a little bit more on the road, at a 24.7% rate.
• Despite largely unremarkable rates, the Reds are currently 9th in runs scored, with 240. That’s almost 70 more than the Royals!
• Largely thanks to Elly De La Cruz, one of baseball’s premier speedsters, the Reds have the 4th most stolen bases, with 53. Elly’s 17 bags are about one-third of the team’s total.
• If you’re just now learning that Garrett Hampson is on this team, so am I.

Cincinnati Reds, In Relief

• The Cincinnati Reds have a 3.82 ERA in relief, 14th in baseball. Opponents slash .219 / .299 / .384 against them.
• Reds relievers are also 14th in walks by percentage, but only 22nd in strikeout percentage
• Reds relievers have also allowed the 4th most home runs and the 11th most walks while only placing 19th in strikeouts, giving them a 4.55 FIP, the 5th highest in baseball.
• Emilio Pagán, the team’s closer, isn’t exactly elite but does have an expected ERA of 2.82.
• Scott Barlow, the Royals’ former closer, is still around! And he’s modified his breaker-heavy approach by introducing a sweeper to his repertoire and making it his most-used pitch.
• Brent Suter remains one of the most interesting relievers in the game, as his fastball barely climbs over 86 MPH, but he has the 4th longest extension of any pitcher’s delivery.

Game Times & Pitching Matchups

Monday, May 26 @ 3:10 PM – RHP Nick Martinez (2-5, 3.43 ERA, 57.2 IP) v RHP Michael Lorenzen (3-5, 3.77 ERA, 57.1 IP)

• Nick Martinez is a rare case of a player actually taking the qualifying option and he’s making good use of it. He’s split time between starting and relieving, but seemed to emerge as a legitimate, quality starter in the back half of 2024. He developed a slider that season and weaved it into what is now a 6-pitch repertoire: 4-seam, changeup, cutter, sinker, slider and curveball, with every pitch ranging between 9-23% usage. Seth Lugo may be a good comparison, as both pitchers don’t overwhelm with velocity, but have at least a little stuff with each of their numerous pitches and attack the zone with all of them. He likely won’t strike out many, but he also won’t walk a lot either. This is a good pitcher, but it should be interesting to see how the swing-happy Royals will approach a strike-heavy strikeout-light starter.
• Michael Lorenzen, the former Red, was charged with a loss in each of his last two start, though neither of them felt all that bad. They combine for 12 innings and 6 runs, a pedestrian 4.50 ERA which may as well be the expectation for him. He’s a clear case of a starter that gets worse as the game goes on; he has not allowed a single run in the first inning of any start this year, he’s only allowed two in the second inning, and then has a 4.85 ERA in innings 3-6. He’s limited opponents to a .533 OPS in their first time through the order, but it quickly balloons to .878 the second time around and .912 if the third time comes. All that said, Lorenzen also has a 0.95 ERA pitching in Kansas City this season.

Tuesday, May 27 @ 6:40 PM – RHP Brady Singer (5-3, 4.88 ERA, 51.2 IP) v LHP Daniel Lynch IV (3-0, 1.19 ERA, 22.2 IP)

• It’s Brady Singer! Everyone’s favorite 2018 draftee will make his highly anticipated return to Kansas City for the first time since being traded for Jonathan India, which is a great trade that everybody has loved to pieces. There’s not much new with singer; same number and un-aging face, pretty much only throws sinkers and sliders for a lot of strikes, although he seems to have added a cutter to mixed results. He has not thrown a single changeup with the Reds.
• It’s not yet confirmed who the Royals will actually start, but barring any surprises I would expect Lynch to take the bump and get a few dozen pitches. With Cincy’s inadequacy of hitting lefties, here’s hoping Lynch can have a longer “start” and face less pressure, as his 40 pitches in San Francisco only got him through 1.2 innings thanks to 3 walks. Perhaps he’ll also have more to throw, as the Royals seem to be resting him like a starter.

Wednesday, May 28 @ 6:40 PM – RHP Hunter Greene (4-2, 2.54 ERA, 49.2 IP) v LHP Noah Cameron (1-1, 0.93 ERA, 19.1 IP)

• Hunter Greene was been near the top of every velocity-driven leaderboard, but 2025 is the year he has truly become MLB’s top flamethrower. His four-seamer, at 99.3 MPH, has the fastest average of any starter, and even when compared with relievers, he is still the 8th-hardest throwing pitcher in this game. His slider and splitter, both sitting around 88 MPH, are no joke either. On top of this, he’s been hitting the zone much better than previous seasons; after posting a sub-3 strikeout-to-walk ratio, he’s currently sitting on a 6.30 SO/BB. Opponents are slashing .177 / .228 / .359 for a .587. And if that’s not enough, he’s an extreme flyball pitcher pitching in Kauffman Stadium at night. Hopefully all this hype jinxes him like it did for Logan Webb, somehow. If the Royals can reclaim their power swings from that day, that would probably help a lot.
• Noah Cameron is off to one the best starts a starter could ever start. Each of his three starts have exceeded six innings, none have allowed more than one run. Both of the runs he’s allowed are from home runs. His 8-strikeout night last Friday was a confident display of… well, confidence, as Cameron was more than comfortable living in the zone, challenging hitters without fear and beating all of them except Carlos Correa. Truth be told, if Cameron tosses another gem, it may warrant some legitimate discussion about keeping him the rotation over Lorenzen, assuming Ragans and Lugo make it back in time.

Series Expectations & Predictions

This should be a 2-1 series win for the Royals just because that’s what they oughta do. The home team should win the home series.

Something troubling that should be addressed is that the Royals have an MLBMCR (MLB minus Colorado Rockies) worst 75 wRC+ at home home while the Reds have a perfectly average 100 wRC+ on the road. Fortunately, the Royals also have an incredible 2.85 ERA at home, making this more of a “stoppable force meets immovable object” type situation, but it can’t be understated how much more the Royals need to score in their own venue. Even with Greene pitching, I’d like to see 15 runs from the blue team as they limit the Reds to 6. That run differential could even be a sweep, but I feel like if I predict a sweep it would occur in the opposite direction. I don’t even care if they score 12 runs in one game and then combine for three in the others, just as long as the offense has something to show for themselves within this series.

The title of this article is a reference to the Lingua Ignota album ‘Sinner Get Ready’. Here’s a song from it.

Image Credit: Jeff Hanisch (Imagn Images}