The Orioles and Royals begin a seven game set on Friday to decide who will be the American League representative to the World Series. Both teams have waited quite a while for this kind of a chance, and neither seemed to be obvious choices to make a deep postseason run at the start of the year. It’s the consummate answer to those who complain that it’s always the Yankees or Red Sox here, and it has the makings of some of the best baseball in quite a while. All that remains to be seen is who will come out on top.
Starting Pitching
Kansas City has the clear advantage here, but it’s not by as much as one would think. The Royals will lead off with James Shields, a bona fide ace, while the Orioles figure to counter with Chris Tillman. Ideally, Tillman would be used as a 2 or 3, yet Baltimore has managed to squeeze magic out of its nominally unremarkable starting staff. The Royals will then follow up with some order of Jason Vargas, Yordano Ventura, and either Jeremy Guthrie or Danny Duffy. Ideally it would be Duffy who starts game four (he had a fantastic year, his 2.53 ERA much better than Guthrie’s 4.13), yet Ned Yost went with Guthrie’s veteran experience over Duffy’s youth in the ALDS. Duffy will then most likely be a potent weapon out of the bullpen. The Orioles will run Wei-Yin Chen, Bud Norris and Miguel Gonzalez after Tillman. Both Chen and Gonzalez were great down the stretch, but I’ll still take the KC staff.
Bullpen
It is in the bullpens that this series will be decided. Both teams feature phenomenal relief corps, and one would think that more than a few ballgames will come down to which side blinks first. However, it is not due the bullpen personnel, but the lineups that they’ll be facing that give the Orioles the edge here. For better or for worse, the Royals don’t exactly feature the scariest offense in the world. Their brand of small-ball and timely (maybe even lucky) extra-innings homers got them past a beleaguered Angels roster, and they beat the Athletics by a matter of inches when Josh Donaldson just barely missed a Salvador Perez chopper up the line. The power arms of Andrew Miller, Zach Britton, Tommy Hunter, and Darren O’Day should make quick work of the KC table-setters like Alcides Escobar and Nori Aoki. That will prevent Yost from getting speedsters Jarrod Dyson and Terrence Gore into the game, and leave Eric Hosmer, Billy Butler, and Alex Gordon to fend for themselves. Buck Showalter is as good a bullpen manager as they come.
That’s not to downplay what Ned Yost has to work with in his relievers. Kelvin Herrera has survived a forearm scare, and has a clean bill of health to pitch in the ALCS. He is the first part of a three-pitcher tandem that can completely shut down opposing lineups if the Royals are ahead going into the seventh inning. Herrera gives way to Wade Davis, who allowed baserunners (WHIP) to reach at a remarkable 0.85 rate, and then closer Greg Holland comes in. However, Yost has shown a nearly violent reaction to use any of the big three earlier than their usual innings, as displayed so famously when he brought in Ventura (a starter who had thrown more than seventy pitches two days prior) to face Oakland in the sixth, which resulted in a towering Brandon Moss homer and nearly cost the Royals the game.
Lineup
It’s therefore up to the Orioles to make sure they have the lead before Kansas City can get the back end of the bullpen into the game. That’s not the easiest thing in the world, but they can do it. Though they’ve lost Manny Machado and Matt Wieters, the Orioles still score runs like a fine-tuned machine. Their first six (Nick Markakis, Alejandro De Aza, Adam Jones, Nelson Cruz, Steve Pearce, JJ Hardy) is pretty terrifying to pitch to, and that’s before even considering the fact that Cruz has once again proven that he becomes an even more potent hitter in the playoffs. It’s also worth noting that slugger Chris Davis is technically eligible to play in this series now that his suspension is over. However, Davis struggled mightily at the plate this year, and hasn’t seen big league pitching in about a month. It remains to be seen whether or not Showalter will put him on the roster for the series.
The Royals, meanwhile, are a completely different animal. While the Orioles led all of baseball with a whopping 211 homers, the Royals were the only team who hit less than 100. Their offense instead relies on speed, stolen bases, situational hitting, and bunting. Manager Ned Yost has drawn quite a bit of ire for that last component, and most of it is justified. Yost has almost never met a bunt situation he didn’t like, and has a tendency to give away far too many outs in the name of moving runners up. While he may have a bit more wiggle room in this series given Baltimore’s ace-less rotation, the problem will exacerbate itself when the relievers become factors. The minute Dyson and Gore get on base and start swiping bags, Yost’s immediate reaction is to bunt them over to third. The last thing anyone wants to do is give Miller and Britton free outs, yet it’s nearly a guarantee that Yost will do precisely that. The Royals won their first two games against the Angels on extra-inning homers from Hosmer and Mike Moustakas, but both of those came on uncharacteristically bad pitches from what had been a fantastic Angels bullpen. It would have been a bigger shock had they not gone yard on those two pitches. KC cannot continue to bank on clutch homers to win games for them, and that puts them at a disadvantage. The one x-factor is Lorenzo Cain. Cain is quickly becoming one of the best players on the team both offensively and defensively. Yost has decided to bat him third, and it provides a nice shift from the table-setters to the big bats, as Cain fits comfortably into both categories. He’s a very fast runner who can get on base, but is also a very consistent hitter. The key for the Orioles will be to shut Cain down.
Defense
Both Baltimore and Kansas City were great defensive teams this year, but the Royals have the clear advantage here. One could make the argument that there isn’t really a single bad defensive player on the field for the Royals. Their outfield (Gordon, Aoki and the incredibly underrated Lorenzo Cain) gobbles up nearly everything hit to them. Around the horn in the infield, Moustakas, Escobar, Omar Infante and Hosmer all regularly make impressive plays, with Hosmer winning a Gold Glove last year. Salvador Perez is one of the best defensive catchers in baseball, who also calls a great game for his pitchers and can throw out baserunners. This is in keeping with the spectacular pitching that the Royals feature, in that they have emphasized their run prevention to compensate for their deficiency in scoring. So far, it’s worked pretty well.
Bench
At first glance, neither team has much to write home about here. Much of the normal Baltimore bench (Ryan Flaherty, Jonathan Schoop) has been pressed into active duty due to injuries and suspensions, leaving unsavory options to fill their places. However, Baltimore does feature Delmon Young, who has been one of the best pinch-hitters in all of baseball this year. Young has also shown time and again that he thrives in October, and he came up big again against Detroit in the ALDS.
Kansas City also doesn’t have much in terms of hitting on their bench. What they do have, however, are Ned Yost’s two favorite toys. If a slower runner gets on base late in the game against Baltimore, it’s all but certain that they’ll be replaced by Jarrod Dyson or Terence Gore. Dyson (who’s also a great defensive outfielder) used to be the best base-stealer in the American League, until Gore showed up. Gore was a September call-up, and secured himself a spot in the playoffs with his mind-boggling speed. He hasn’t been caught yet, and may not be caught at all this postseason. When he gets put into the game, everyone knows what’s going to happen. The catcher knows, the pitcher knows, the opposing manager knows, everyone knows Gore is running. Then he does anyway. He’s what Billy Hamilton was supposed to be. Despite Yost’s proclivity for bunting and almost misusing his two speedsters, they’re simply too good to not give the Royals a bench advantage.
Managing
There’s a reason the phrase “Yosted” has become a popular phrase on baseball-oriented corners of the Internet. At times, it seems that the Royals win in spite of their manager. We’ve already discussed his fascination with giving away outs and bullpen mismanagement. Both nearly cost them the Wild Card game. Multiple times against Oakland, the Royals ended their half of the inning by stranding a speedy runner on third base after disposing of a precious out to bunt them into scoring position. It’s a maddening thing to watch. When Ventura gave up the homer to Brandon Moss, many wondered if it was finally the end of Yost’s reign. In the end it was wild pitches and a ball just barely out of the reach of Josh Donaldson that did Oakland in, not Ned Yost. One has to wonder if his luck will finally run out.
Meanwhile, there’s Buck Showalter. He’s widely regarded as one of the best managers in the game, and in a series that seems set up to be a chess match of wildly different managerial styles, you’d have to be crazy to bet against Showalter. He’s never won a World Series, and he has to be hungry. He has a squad that can get him there.
Bottom Line
It’s going to be very close. It will be some of the best baseball the world has seen in a long time. Despite all the reasons that have been laid out that the Royals are set up to get in their own way, it can’t be denied that they keep finding ways to win. It’s an intangible quality that I normally hate to even think about, but all of that goes out the window in October. This series will be the ultimate showdown between small ball and the long ball, and it’s going to be damn entertaining. In the end, I think the Orioles will end the Royals’ wild ride in six, maybe seven games. And yes, it will likely be a bone-headed bungle that does them in.
It’s going to take a lot longer than you’d think for it to happen, though. Buckle up, it’s going to be nuts.
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