Will Warren Now Has An Even More Difficult Task In Game 3
Will Warren, who struggled in his last start for the New York Yankees, will now face Seth Lugo instead of the injured Cole Ragans. Then again, one never knows how a game is going to play out, but on paper, the Yankees now have a disadvantage with Warren pitching.
Games are not played on paper. They are played by people who have good days and bad days. Maybe Warren will have a good day, and maybe the Yankees will jump all over Lugo as they jumped all over Noah Cameron and Kris Bubic. Do you think the Yankees will chase Lugo as well?
Warren Has a Difficult Matchup
Warren is 4-3 and is on the mound for the Yankees in his 14th start of the season. He has a 5.34 earned run average in 57.1 innings pitched, with 75 strikeouts. Warren was very good for a period of five starts by setting new career highs in strikeouts in four consecutive games. That had Yankees‘ fans thinking Warren had turned a corner, but he struggled in his last two outings, so maybe the man with all the movement on pitches has not turned the corner.
The Kansas City Royals will hand the ball to Lugo for his 12th start of the season. Lugo is 3-5 with a 3.46 earned run average. That earned run average is good, and Lugo has something like nine pitches. Lugo is a replacement for Ragans and his 5,18 earned run average. Ragans is a good pitcher but has been struggling with injuries all season. His high earned run average is a much better matchup for Warren. Ragans went on the injured list, and the Royals reinstated Lucas Erceg, and his 100 MPH fastball.
Key Players
By the third game of the series, the two teams know each other pretty well. Nevertheless, there are some key players in this game, for both teams, that will determine the outcome and this game. The Royals have Bobby Witt Jr. leading them. He has 22 doubles, 3 triples, 8 home runs, and 23 walks while hitting .291. Maikel Garcia leads the Kansas City Royals with a .308 batting average. The sasquatch, Vinnie Pasquantino, leads the Royals with 10 home runs and 38 RBI.
Jonathan India is hitting .248 with 11 doubles, 3 home runs, and 27 walks. That said, he has been a little disappointing this year.
For the Yankees, the key player is Aaron Judge, of course. He is batting .396 with 24 home runs and 58 RBI. All three of those stats rank first among New York hitters this season, and Judge hit another home run in the second game of the series. Cody Bellinger has 58 hits and an on-base percentage of .333 to go with a slugging percentage of .448 this season. Paul Goldschmidt has been slumping lately, but he is slashing .310/.366/.459 this season for the New York Yankees. Finally, Anthony Volpe is batting .248 with an on-base percentage of .324 and a slugging percentage of .452 this season. He has been hitting better of late.
Conclusion
By winning the first two games of this series, the Yankees have won this series. They have won all five games against the Royals. One gets the feeling that the Yankees like beating up on the Royals. We will see if the Yankees can continue to beat up on the Royals in the third game of this series. The key, again, will be scoring runs early in the game.
