Royals v. Indians – Pitching Matchups Preview

Friday: RHP Yordano Ventura (2-1, 3.67 ERA) v. RHP Danny Salazar (2-2, 2.40 ERA)

Yordano Ventura has really been an interesting player thus far in 2016.

His velocity has beem down, and as you can see by this chart brought to you by Brooks Baseball, this is a developing pattern.

Some of this may be intentional from the Royals, with the organization having a history of wanting limit some high velocity guys from overthrowing.

This method is very debatable, and many would argue that it is more harmful on the arm, but the velocity dip from Ventura is likely not unintentional.

Meaning, he probably still has that fire in his right arm. However, the goal of not overthrowing that fastball would be to have better command of it, and that has certainly not been the case in 2016.

Ventura enters Friday’s action with a staggering 6.67 BB/9 and he doesn’t appear to be using pitches out of the zone to his advantage, with a 20% O-Swing% (percentage of pitches a batter swings at out of the strike zone), which is 7% below league average.

To summarize that whole paragraph, Ventura is missing the zone a lot and when he does, he is missing badly.

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With that being said, he has still had relative success. Obviously we know that walks are usually a deal-breaker (remember pre-2014 Edinson Volquez?) and eventually, they will catch up with Ventura if he doesn’t bring them down.

However, he enters this start with a 3.67 ERA, with a tolerable 22 strikeouts in 27 IP.

His last start really was the first start that the walks caught up with him, walking six hitters, but only giving up three hits.

Two of those three hits, of course, were homers, but alas.

With all that being said, he heads to Progressive Field, a place where he has had a ton of success, against a team that is as frustrated as the Royals right now.

He will be opposed by the strikeout machine that is Danny Salazar, who already has 34 strikeouts in his 30 IP.

Despite throwing hard, the Royals haven’t had much success against Salazar, with Royals hitters who have faced him hitting just .234 off of Salazar.

Must-See Matchup – Danny Salazar v. Eric Hosmer

Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas have been the lone offensive warriors for the Royals thus far in 2016. Each of them have two homers off of Salazar, the only Royals with homers against Salazar, but Moustakas is hitting just .182 against the righty.

Hosmer, on the other hand, has eight hits in his 20 at-bats against Salazar, with six of them going for extra-bases.

The Royals need an offensive jump start, and Hosmer has been that jump for much of the season. Look for that to continue on Friday night.

Next: Game Two - Ian Kennedy Looks To Stay Strong

Saturday: RHP Ian Kennedy (3-2, 2.61 ERA) v. Cody Anderson (0-1, 7.65 ERA)

We are still just five starts into the season, but it would seem that Dayton Moore hit the nail on the head with Ian Kennedy.

Although he has went at least seven innings in just one of his starts, he has struck out at least six batters in four of those five starts.

During that span, he is giving up less than a home run per nine innings and is already halfway to his 0.8 fWAR mark from 2015.

What is exciting about Kennedy is that he exceeding our expectations in every area but the area that we expected, which was the innings column.

It should be expected that the bulldog will eventually surface and we’ll get some serious innings out of Kennedy and once that happens, his value will really be seen.

Oh, but did I mention he has a 2.61 ERA? Sorry, I forgot about that one. If he threw 150 innings with a 2.61 ERA, I would be just fine.

Coming over from the National League, he is facing a lot of teams that haven’t seen a whole lot of him, and Cleveland is no exception.

Opposing Kennedy will be 25-year old sophomore Cody Anderson, who has struggled out of the gate in 2016 with a 7.65 ERA and a whopping 1.90 WHIP through 20.0 IP.

To contrast the two starters, Anderson has given up eight more earned runs than Kennedy (17 to 9) in 11 fewer innings (20.0 to 31.0)

Must-See Matchup – Ian Kennedy v. Indians Lineup

As noted earlier, Kennedy has been facing a bunch of American League teams that haven’t seen him a ton, at least with their current rosters.

The Indians are a team that have been seemingly frustrated for much of the last two seasons, with under-performing squads each year.

After being swept by the Phillies and scoring just seven runs over three games, the Indians proceeded to sweep the Tigers and score 20 runs over three games, to jump back above .500

We obviously know the Indians for their starting rotation, but their lineup features the likes of Michael Brantley, Jason Kipnis, and Francisco Lindor and are in the middle of a hot homestand.

Next: Eddy Remaining Steady

Sunday: RHP Edinson Volquez (3-2, 3.13 ERA) v. Josh Tomlin (4-0, 3.13 ERA)

Edinson Volquez’s scalding hot start to the season was stopped in it’s tracks with a five inning, eight earned run performance in Anaheim last week.

However, he came back and gave the Royals 7.2 brilliant innings, striking out seven and giving up just two runs in a tough luck, 2-0 loss.

The performance brought his ERA back down to 3.13 and, more impressively, a 2.95 FIP.

That one is actually pretty easy to explain, with his eight run hiccup last week being due to the Angels finding every possible hole in the infield.

Volquez did struggle a bit against Cleveland in 2015, giving up 16 runs in just 20.0 IP against the Indians.

He will opposed by 31-year old Josh Tomlin, who hasn’t exactly had bunches of success against the Royals, giving up seven runs of his own in 12.2 IP in 2015. That is good for a 4.97 ERA.

Must-See Matchup – Josh Tomlin v. Mike Moustakas and Salvador Perez

For their career, Moustakas and Perez are hitting .516 off of  Tomlin (16-31) with six doubles and three home runs.

For a team really needing a jump start offensively, this should be a good candidate for that game with the Royals roster as a whole hitting .325 against Tomlin.

With that being said, the Royals haven’t hit anything in a long time, so maybe we should curb our enthusiasm.