Royals v. Tigers Pitching Matchups – Power v. Power

Wednesday: Jordan Zimmermann (2-0, 0.00 ERA) v. Ian Kennedy (2-0, 0.66 ERA)

This is definitely the marquee matchup of this three-game set in Kansas City.

Both of Wednesday’s starting pitchers come from National League backgrounds and signed huge contracts in the offseason.

Both have responded for their respective teams with two really good starts.

Zimmermann is yet to surrender a run in his two wins, with hitters hitting just .174 off of him early on.

Kennedy has given up a run, but he has also struck out 14 batters, opposed to Zimmerman’s seven.

Over his seven-year career, Zimmermann has only faced the Royals once, going 7.2 innings and striking out seven, giving up two runs in the process.

Kennedy, on the other hand, has faced the Tigers three times, and they have not been very friendly.

He has given up 11 runs over 17.1 innings, while giving up 19 hits.

Zimmermann figures to be a pretty tough assignment for the Royals lineup. He is the essence of a pitcher the Royals struggle against: average velocity fastball, with average stuff, who makes a living deceiving hitters.

His career has really been marked by getting hitters to chase pitches out of the zone. If you look at his career peripherals, nothing stands out. He doesn’t strike out a lot of people, but he also doesn’t walk people. He isn’t an extreme ground ball or fly ball pitcher, even though he leans more to the former, and he gets a decent amount of soft contact.

Why he is a terrible mismatch for the Royals is that for his career, he has always been an above-average pitcher at drawing swings and misses on pitches out of the zone.

He also does this by throwing 60-65% fastballs, despite having an underwhelming fastball.

He confuses hitters, and the Royals have historically struggled against such pitchers.

Kennedy is not all that different, except for the fact that those outs come via strikeout. He doesn’t have one really dominate pitch (with his two-seam probably being the closest), but he manages to get strikeouts.

Both pitcher see the negatives to not having that crazy stuff. For Zimmermann, it is in his inability to strike hitters out, even though we really haven’t seen this bite him yet in his career. For Kennedy, we see it in run prevention. He strikes out a ton of hitters, but also tends to get smacked around a bit.

Needless to say, it will be a fun game to watch with two pitchers with similar arm talent, pitching to completely different approaches.

Must-See Matchup – Ian Kennedy v. the Tigers

This is what we worried about when the Royals signed Kennedy.

He was giving up bomb after bomb, playing in the National League, in a pitcher’s park.

How was he going to fare when Miguel Cabrera and J.D. Martinez step in the box?

He passed his first test with flying colors by shutting down the high-powered Astros, in Houston.

But none of those guys were Miguel Cabrera.

The Royals success against the Tigers will play a huge role in their ability to win the division, so Kennedy’s ability to get Tigers outs will be crucial long-term, not just for this game.

Next: Thursday - Steady Eddie's Turn

Thursday: RHP Mike Pelfrey (0-2, 6.52 ERA) v. RHP Edinson Volquez (2-0, 2.04 ERA)

Edinson Volquez is off to one of the hotter starts by a Royals starting pitcher in recent memory. The whole rotation is gelling at the moment, but Volquez has turned a rebound 2014 season in Pittsburg, into a skeptic-laden successful first season in Kansas City, into finally, a mesh of stuff and control in the playoffs that lead us to believe his best work may be in front of him.

That is usually an outlandish thing to say about 32, going on 33, year old who had never had a walk rate lower than four going into 2014. However, against all normal logic, Edinson seems to be entering his prime.

His velocity has surprised everybody, by increasing into the 95-97 range in the playoff last October.

That velocity was accompanied by some ridiculous movement, that led Brooks Baseball to classify it as a sinker.

He came into 2016 with some big expectations, accompanied by a corporate memory of what he had done the previous October, and wondering if that would continue.

Thus far, it has.

However, he will be facing a team that knocked in 16 runs in 22 innings last season off of Volquez.

He will be opposed by Mike Pelfrey, who is one of the rare bad pitchers that the Royals have hit.

In six starts against the Royals, Pelfrey has pitched in 28.2 innings and given up 17 runs on a whopping 40 hits.

This is really a series that favors the Royals, with two pretty mediocre pitchers going against the Royals top two guys, while the Zimmermann faces Kennedy, who is as hot as any pitcher in baseball.

Must-See Matchup – Mike Pelfrey v. Omar Infante

Infante has the largest sample size for any Royal against Pelfrey, and it’s not all that close.

In 41 at-bats, Omar has logged 17 hits. However, he has only logged one extra-base hit.

The Royals are really banking on Infante having a resurgence, as they are currently staring into a four-year, $30 million black hole.

Next: Royals v. Tigers - Series Preview

He is off to a good start, already being worth a 0.5 fWAR, which is nearly a full win better than his career value in Kansas City (-0.4).

However, it is early. This could be an opportunity for Infante to continue hitting against a guy who he has seen often.