Royals @ Rays Series Preview: Something Terrible Came With The Rain

Last week, the Tampa Bay Rays and Kansas City Royals both went 5-1. This week, the two 14-win teams will face off for a 3-game series in the iconic George Steinbrenner Field. After Hurricane Milton destroyed the roof in the Rays’ own stadium, they’ve moved to the Yankees’ Spring Training facility for the season. Perhaps the Royals, who enjoy hitting in Spring Training parks, could take advantage.

Tampa Bay Rays, On Offense

Something of note with the Rays is they have significantly different home and road splits. The team has an 85 wRC+ on the road, even after going 5-1 on their last trip. At home, it’s a 125 wRC+. It’s unclear if this is just some early-season weirdness, an effect of the Rays’ temporary home, their original home having an effect of worsening hitters, or all of the above. The Rays were a very good home-hitting team in 2023 when they won 99 games so it could be the first option, but this park was also meant to replicate Yankee Stadium… it’s their Spring Training facility after all. If this field is a launching pad, then even the power-deficient Royals have a chance to get their numbers up.

Tampa’s headlining hitter is Chandler Simpson, who came into the league a couple weeks ago with a lot of hype about how fast he is. He stole 104 bases in the minors last year, to give you an idea, and he aims to be a powerless contact hitter like Luis Arraez… or Nicky Lopez but good. The other hitter to remember is Jonathan Aranda, who’s started a promising breakout candidate.

The Rays as a team have a wRC+ of 110, which is tied with Detroit for the 7th best in baseball. Their offensive emphasis is simply hitting the ball, as they have the 7th best batting average and the 4th best BABIP; they’ve also stolen the 6th most bases to this point and should rank higher as Simpson gets more playing time. Interestingly, the Rays are only 17th in scoring runs, but they make up for it on defense, leading baseball in defensive runs saved. And, as usual, they pitch pretty well.

Tampa Bay Rays, In Relief

In terms of relief pitching, the Rays live up to their reputation for another year by ranking in the top-5 in ERA. However, that 2.99 ERA clashes with their 4.31 FIP and no team has this much of a difference between the two metrics. There is one thing they excel at more confidently: limiting walks. Rays relivers have the lowest walk percentage of any bullpen in baseball, and given that Royals hitters have the 3rd lowest walk percentage, we might not see a lot of late-game scoring.

Game Times & Pitching Matchups

Tuesday, April 29 @ 6:05 PM
RHP Michael Lorenzen (2-3, 3.90 ERA, 27.2 IP) v RHP Taj Bradley (2-1, 5.08 ERA, 28.1 IP) – Michael Lorenzen is coming off one of his best starts of the year, but he has yet to have a good game on the road. Meanwhile, the Rays have a 138 wRC+ against righties at home, so this should go smoothly. Bradley throws hard and has a great curveball that has only allowed one hit on the year so far, but he otherwise hasn’t gotten the best results yet. His control has been a bit off, but he has been known to collect a lot of strikeouts before.

Wednesday, April 30 @ 7:05 PM
[No Probable Starter] v RHP Drew Rasmussen (1-1, 2.10 ERA, 25.2 IP) – It remains to be seen if Cole Ragans will make his next start or not due to the groin tightness he experienced on Thursday. If not, it will probably be a bullpen game with either Jonathan Bowlan or Daniel Lynch IV pitching the first couple of innings. Unfortunately, the Rays’ ace seems guaranteed to take the mound; Rasmussen has a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 4.5 and opponents are hitting .189 against him this year. He also has a 0.57 ERA in 3 starts at home this year, if you want something else to be excited about. Rasmussen attacks with a lot of velocity and has a great cutter.

Thursday, May 1 @ 12:05 PM
RHP Seth Lugo (2-3, 3.08 ERA, 38 IP) v RHP Shane Baz (3-0, 2.45 ERA, 29.1 IP) – Seth Lugo threw one of his best games as a Kansas City Royal last Friday and is just two outs shy of leading MLB in innings pitched. He’s pitched more than six inning in each of his last three starts. Baz is another hard-throwing righty who can strike guys out a lot and doesn’t give up a lot of hits. He mostly gets by with just the fastball and curveball.

Series Goals & Expectations

This is a bit of a deceptive series – the Rays don’t seem like they should be tough given their record, but their home numbers and pitching matchups should tell you otherwise. However, the Royals need to prove they can win on the road and function on offense even against the best pitchers. I would like to see the Royals score 12 runs this series. They don’t necessarily have to score four per game, but it would be nice to see them average that. The bullpen might be leaned on a bit heavily, so if they can maintain a 3.00 ERA, they can be said to have done their part.

This article is named after the Thornhill song ‘Something Terrible Came With The Rain’.

Image Credit: Mary DeCicco (MLB Photos via Getty Images)