Astros @ Royals Series Preview: Astrological straits changing your pace

Hopefully the Royals will keep the momentum they’ve built over the past few days, because it’s time to face a real team again.

The Houston Astros come into Kansas City with a 13-11 record, half a game behind the Mariners and Rangers in the AL West. They’re one of just five teams in the entire American League that has a positive run differential right now. No, really.

Also pictured is the entire AL West being within two games. Since the standings are on the mind, the Tigers and Guardians have kept building on their once-thought-to-be-shaky starts, so the Royals haven’t made much progress with their cool W4. Both teams have won five of their last seven while the Royals have only those four wins to show for themselves. It’s probably going to be another tough race for the Central.

Houston Astros, On Offense

The Astros are always correctly assumed to be a good offensive team, but that hasn’t been their profile for this season so far. Their team-wide 94 wRC+ ranks them 22nd with nothing standing out positively. Instead, it’s been the power metrics weighing them down, with the 7th worst slugging% and the 4th worst isolated power. It’s easy to blame this on the slow starts from Christian Walker and Yordan Alvarez, the team’s expected power core–rather, what’s left with Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker no longer around. Walker has been hot for the past five games where he’s hit two homers and OPS’d over 1.100, but he also has a very whitish-blue Savant page. Alvarez, on the other hand, seems to be having Salvy-tier luck as his expected slugging% is over 150 points greater than his actual SLG. It’s imperative to note that Yordan Alvarez has a career OPS of 1.211 against the Royals and a 1.289 OPS in Kauffman Stadium with 4 home runs and 15 RBIs in 15 games. Don’t fall for the negative bWAR, Alvarez is still very lethal to KC.

Houston can at least say they don’t have as shallow of a lineup as other weak-hitting teams like the Royals or Rockies currently do; 11 of their 13 position players have an OPS+ over 85 while the Royals are close to having 11 of their 13 hitters fall below that number. The Astros just haven’t had anyone take off on offense yet with the aforementioned sluggers slumping and Jose Altuve showing further decline; he’s still a good hitter, just not as dangerous in years past and also not a very good left fielder, it seems.

Houston Astros, In Relief

If a team isn’t hitting well but has a positive run differential, it’s safe to assume they pitch well, right? The Houston Astros have the best bullpen in the American League, at least based on ERA and FIP so far. It’s good in all the ways it needs to be. They’re a top-5 unit in pretty much anything you’d want them to be; strikeout%, WHIP, K-BB%, even the expected stats agree that it’s lights out. They’re only behind the Rays in left on base % and don’t even have a super lucky BABIP. Closer Josh Hader gave up one run in his first appearance (which was still a save) and has been perfect ever since. He’s allowed 3 walks and 6 hits on the season with 17 strikeouts in 13 innings. The Royals’ typical late-game magic will have to be extra potent to break through these guys.

As usual, the Astros have a formidable rotation as well, though it’s a bit lopsided. They seem to have two bad starters, two decent starters and one very, very good starter. The Royals get to see the best three. Isn’t that great?

Pitching Matchups

April 25 @ 6:40 PM
RHP Hayden Wesneski (1-1, 3.91 ERA, 23 IP) v RHP Seth Lugo (1-3, 3.90 ERA, 30 IP) – Wesneski is one of the players Houston got back from the blockbuster Kyle Tucker trade over the off-season. He throws six pitches but almost two-thirds of what he actually throws are 4-seamers and sweepers. He gets good extension to amplify his otherwise okay stuff and has a very good strikeout-to-walk ratio above 6. However, he gets hit a lot and also quite hard; he’s already surrendered six homers, including at least one in every start. Seth Lugo has also surrendered six bombs, though four were against the Yankees in their stadium which can raise some disputes. His last start in Detroit was much more like last year’s Seth Lugo, with a repeat of his season-high 6.2 innings pitched and 3 earned runs.

April 26 @ 6:10 PM
LHP Framber Valdez (1-2, 4.50 ERA, 28 IP) v RHP Michael Wacha (0-3, 4.15 ERA, 26 IP) – In a contract year, Valdez, who has been Houston’s ace of the 2020’s outside of Verlander’s last Cy Young, is the same as he always is. For better or for worse, he tends to post extreme results; he either has amazing starts going 6+ innings of 1- or 0-run ball, or he gets hit for like 8 runs in 5 innings. Case in point, he has two scoreless starts already this season. Also following convention is Michael Wacha, who’s off to a shaky start but has better-looking peripherals; same story as last year, pretty much. His last start in Detroit was the first of the year where he didn’t allow a walk, though it would be nice if the team could also win when he pitches, which has yet to happen.

April 27 @ 1:10 PM
RHP Hunter Brown (3-1, 1.16 ERA, 31 IP) v LHP Kris Bubic (2-1, 1.45 ERA, 31 IP) – This should be fun, two young and relatively obscure pitchers that are suddenly on a Cy Young warpath. Brown is a 5th rounder from the 2019 Draft that never stops giving who posted a respectable 3.49 ERA in 170 innings and 30 starts last year. His breakthrough for 2025 has a lot to do with his 4-seamer getting a 1+ MPH bump; he now sits around 97 MPH and can get over 99 when he needs to. He’s excellent and comes into this start with an active scoreless streak of 24 innings, including the entirety of his last three starts. That’s a big order for Kris Bubic to compete with, but he may as well be the best candidate right now. He doesn’t have an equally-impressive scoreless streak, but he did completely mute the Rockies for seven innings, which ended up mattering a lot in a game where every run counted.

Series Goals & Expectations

With these pitching matchups, it would be forgivable to lose two of three, but with the team in an early hole the Royals are affording to lose series less and less. If the offense can carry on what it had in the Rockies series, with how the team was able to find more opportunities and scored at many different points, Wesneski and Valdez should be beatable with how hittable they’ve been. Maybe they could use the experience of Chase Dollander’s velocity as practice for the Hunter Brown game, though it should be tight. If the Royals can win this series, they might not play another team with a better record for a couple of weeks.

The title of the article is a lyric from the Zach Hill song ‘Astrological Straits.’

Image Credit: Reed Hoffmann (AP Photo)