Detroit Tigers look for revenge against KC Royals

Time to start another win streak!

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Preview: Detroit Tigers Vs. Kansas City Royals

A.J. Reilly: Detroit Tigers now set their attention to Kansas City. And we’ve just played Kansas City so I don’t wanna get into the numbers again. We’ve just done this in a preview. It’s something that the schedule is the way that it is. 

The Detroit Tigers are playing something like 18 games, 17 days before the all-star break. With a double header right after the all-star break. The schedule is nuts for these guys because of the lockout, because they could not start opening day when they had scheduled opening day.

So now we have four games in three days against Kansas City in Kansas City. We’re gonna face Brad Keller in game one of the double header on Monday. Brad Keller shut us down in Comerica Park last week. He’s gonna face off against Michael Pineda. Hopefully, Michael Pineda can continue to be steady Eddy. 

He’s not gonna blow the socks off of anybody. He’s not gonna just dominate. But hopefully, he can get five, or six innings, and get back into the bullpen with a lead. Hopefully. 

And the key in game one is going to be getting to Brad Keller early. If we allow him to establish that slider that he was throwing the other week and dominating with we’re in trouble, the bats have got to pick up.

Now we’ve gone into Kansas City and won a series previously. So hopefully, we can do the same. Because this is a little bit of a revenge series. Remember what I said last weekend? This was just last weekend before they swept the Guardians. I told you that if they lost the series to the Kansas City Royals, it was an utter failure.

It was an utter failure. They lost a series. They ended up sweeping the Guardians going on a six-game run. That kind of creates a little bit of hope, but this team is what this team is. So this is a little bit of a revenge series in game two Monday night you’re gonna get Daniel Lynch against Alex Faedo.

Faedo’s coming off that little bit of a hip injury. I wouldn’t expect him to go more than five innings. He’s gonna be on a very limited pitch count. Gonna almost be like a bullpen game. 

On Tuesday lefty, Kris Bubic is gonna be facing off against Beau Brieske. We’re looking for Beau to build on the outing that he had against the White Sox in this previous series.

And then game four on Wednesday at 2:10, it’s gonna be Brady Singer against Tarik Skubal. Now Brady Singer works fast. He was dominant and went nine strikeouts and four and two-thirds innings against us in the previous series. He and Skubal faced off last time we know these pitchers, we’ve just seen them within the last 10 days.

So there’s no new information for me to give you or to preview other than to say, we gotta make adjustments. It’s gotta be different than it was when they were here at Comerica Park. Because if you wanna win a series, you’ve gotta get to these pitchers. 

Now in previews, we always talk about what do they do? What don’t they do? Here’s the deal. I’ve given this to you before. The Royals, statistically are not a fantastic team. They’re not. 

In fact, they’re sitting at, I think 32 and 52. Okay. They are four games worse than the Detroit Tigers, statistically in the standings. But you know what they do well, they beat us.

That’s what they do. They find a way to play hard against us. I don’t know what it is about them standing on their head when they play the Detroit Tigers. But for whatever reason, they are not a 32 and 52 team when they play the Detroit Tigers. 

They have an all-star in Andrew Benintendi. Who’s a fantastic average, seeking left-handed bat. Whit Merrifield, who always beats up on us.

They’ve got some good guys and we have to play them hard. This time we cannot play them like they’re the fifth-place team in the Al central. We have to play them like they’re the first-place team in the Al central. 

Try to play them like we played the Guardians and the White Sox. We have to play them like we’ve played the Twins in the previous series to that. 

It’s just one of those situations where you cannot play down to your competition. Over, this year, specifically, and specifically looking at the series 10 days ago, they played down to the competition. I’d like to think that on paper, we’re a better team than the Kansas City Royals.

And I’d like to think that we come out of this four-game set in three days with a series win. Anything less than a split is an utter failure. I will repeat this against the Kansas City Royals, again, anything less than a split. 

So losing this series is an utter failure. Now over this last week, since they left Comerica Park, they’ve been swept by the Astros in a four-game series.

And then they won two out of three from the Guardians. So they have it. They have the opportunity. They’re probably as frustrating a team to be a fan of as we are this season. 

But the reality is you gotta play the team in front of you. You gotta get to Brad Keller right off the bat. Set the tone for the series in the first game with a double header on Monday. Anything less than a split is a failure.

And I expect our pitching to hold up. I expect our pitching to do well. I’d look for Pineda, for Brieske, for Skubal to build on the starts that they’ve had previously. And hopefully, we go into this final series before the all-star break against the Guardians this upcoming weekend. Hopefully, we go into that with another series, win under our belts.

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