Royals @ Twins Series Preview: Twins Got Their Hype Back

After trading blows with another team around 28 wins, The Royals meet their closest division rival, the Minnesota Twins. This is the second series of the season between the two teams, but the narrative for both teams is strongly different. In the second week of April, both teams played a four-game series with the aim of recovering from a poor start, but the Royals were able to outdo the Twins three games to one. Both teams had poor offenses but much different records. Now, the two teams are tied for second in the AL Central thanks to Minnesota’s recent 13-game winning streak. Thanks to that, the team is 14-4 in the month of May.

Minnesota Twins, On Offense

• Minnesota has a 99 wRC+ on the season, but that mark is 108 in the month of May.
• Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton have recently missed time with a concussion. It’s assumed that Correa will be activated over the weekend, if not on Friday.
• Kody Clemens is a red-hot bat, slashing .414 / .469 / .828 in his last 9 games.
• Royce Lewis is off to a powerless start to the season, with a 57 wRC+, a .298 SLG and a .369 xSLG.
• Minnesota ranks 15th in defensive runs saved and 10th in outs above average.
• They also rank 23rd in stolen bases, but the currently-inactive Buxton is their only hitter with more than five on the year.

Minnesota Twins, In Relief

• Minnesota’s offense is only about average, but their pitching has been exceptional especially lately.
• Twins relievers have a 3.09 ERA, 4th best in baseball. (Royals are currently 6th with a 3.22 ERA)
• Their FIP is also 3.09, which is the best in baseball.
• Twins RPs walk the fewest hitters and strike out the fourth most, giving them the second best K-BB% behind only Toronto’s bullpen.
• Minnesota’s bullpen is the only one better than KC’s at generating soft contact, and they do so at a 21.5% rate. They’re also fifth-best at limiting hard contact, with just 28% of hit balls registering as hard.
• Jhoan Durán is having a career year with a 1.21 ERA, although he has a 4.50 career ERA versus the Royals.
• Danny Coulumbe has not allowed a run after 19 appearances, and opponents are hitting .138 against him. He barely touches 90 MPH.
• Louis Varland leads MLB in appearances and hard hit %, but his high ground ball rate gives him an expected batting average against of .222.

Game Times & Pitching Matchups

Friday, May 23 @ 7:10 PM – LHP Noah Cameron (1-1, 0.71 ERA, 12.2 IP) v Pablo López (4-2, 2.40 ERA, 45 IP)

• Cameron has not allowed a hit in the first five innings of either of his starts regardless of what stat sheets say. I would argue his San Francisco start was even better than his Tampa start as he allowed no walks as opposed to many. With a Twins lineup that isn’t especially great at any particular thing, it might be another strong outing if his command stays sharp.
• López owns a few teams and the Royals are certainly one of them, as he carries a 2.23 ERA against Kansas City in seven starts. The workhorse pitcher is also known to have longer starts, as his 44.1 innings would average more than 6 innings per start. Many Royals fans are quite familiar with López and aren’t looking forward to this matchup at all.

Saturday, May 24 @ 1:10 PM – RHP Michael Wacha (3-4, 2.86 ERA, 56.2 IP) v RHP Zebby Matthews (0-1, 12.00 ERA, 3 IP)

• Wacha is quietly riding a hot streak where he hasn’t allowed more than 3 earned runs in his last 8 starts and the Royals have gone 6-2 in those games. He gave up a home run in his last start against St. Louis, but still boasts the 11th lowest home run rate of all qualified pitchers and the 6th lowest home run to fly ball ratio, which are core reasons for his success with the Royals.
• Matthews is a 25-year-old who barely exceeded rookie limits last year; he actually made his first MLB start against the Royals in a rare blowout loss for KC. He pitched five scoreless innings, though gave up four runs in another five-inning start in September. He’s one of many Twins starters who emphasizes a 4-seamer, but the slider is supposed to be his money pitch. He also throws a cutter, changeup and curveball.

Sunday, May 25 @ 1: 10 PM – LHP Kris Bubic (5-2, 1.47 ERA, 61.1 IP) v RHP Bailey Ober (4-1, 3.68 ERA, 51.1 IP)

• Kris Bubic has not allowed a single run to teams not from Houston since facing the Yankees on April 16. He has more scoreless starts (6) than starts with any earned runs (4) so far. This is copy/pasted from the last series preview because he threw seven scoreless innings against San Francisco. The noise Kris Bubic is making around baseball is starting to get very loud.
• Bailer Ober has a 5.90 ERA against the Royals in 11 starts, which is a common talking point for us and something I probably mentioned in the first Twins preview. That said, he pitched six innings and gave up just one run in Kansas City on April 10, although the Twins still lost that game. Ober’s slow fastball and wide array of offspeed pitches also seems to be something that works well against the Royals, so this might not be the easiest matchup in the world.

Series Expectations & Predictions

It’s a little bit hard to gauge the Twins because it feels like they’re always in some kind of state of flux; with Buxton out (again) and Lewis slumping it feels that way yet again. They’re a hot team, but the hot streak came from their pitching moreso than their hitting and it seems like the streak is over… but they’re always a threat to win games. I’m still going to put a 2-1 series win into writing for the Royals. I don’t think Pablo is an impossible pitcher for this team to crack despite his results and you could say I believe in this pitching squad much more than I believe in the Twins scoring a lot of runs this weekend.

One likely factor for this series is if Salvador Perez has truly reclaimed his power swing or not. If he has, two home runs from him over the weekend would be an excellent sight to see. If the Royals can score 12 runs this series, it should translate to a productive weekend.

This article is titled after the Run the Jewels song ‘Twin Hype Back’.

Image Credit: Stephen Maturen (Getty Images)