Kansas City Royals to take on Minnesota Twins in series-opener – MLB Preview
The Kansas City Royals will take on the Minnesota Twins in the first match of the four-game series, at Target Field in Minneapolis on Thursday July 14, to start the second half of the 2011 regular season.
The Royals have scheduled left-hander Bruce Chen to start series-opener. The 34-year-old veteran hurler is 5-2 with a 3.26 ERA after ten starts in this season. Chen played a strong season and gained four consecutive wins in the start of the season. He stumbled
a little but encountered with great manner.
The left-hand pitcher has a better record in the second half, as he has a 27-31 record with 4.79 ERA before the break while has 26-21 record with 4.33 ERA after the break. Looking at his second half performance in previous years, experts believe he can take
the Royals into some phenomenal wins but still need some support from the offence.
The Royals are at the bottom of the American League with 37 wins and 54 losses. They started the season in a great fashion but failed to maintain their momentum and dropped even to weaker teams. However, the Royals have swept the Twins in three game series
earlier this season, but they also dropped in all four games of the previous series.
Despite the inconsistent nature of his players, the Royals’ manager Ned Yost still sees some positive things in the club.
"You look at our club and look where we are in terms of our defence as a whole ... our bullpen, our starting pitching and our base running and we've made a lot of progress," he said.
The Twins will land with their struggling starter Francisco Liriano, who has 5-7 record with a very high 5.06 ERA in 15 starts of the season. He has lost five of his last 10 games and in each game he won, he tossed seven or more innings and did not allow
more than two runs except one against the San Diego Padres.
Liriano also has popularity of making strong games after the All-Star break and his overall performance against the Twins provide him a chance to take his club into high wins. It is also a positive sign for the Twins, who lost 20 games under .500 marks in
May and despite making a burly come-back, they failed to gain reasonable spot in win chart until the end of the first half.
We have been battling with injuries, though we made some reasonable amount of runs and we are still fighting hard to get back to .500 mark, commented the Twins’ manager Ron Gardenhire.
"All we can do is hope," Gardenhire said. "You never can predict what will happen. One team can go on a run and get away from everybody."
No matter how sure Gardenhire is, the Twins still has to cross the Royals’ offence, whether it is weak or strong. Baseball is a game where no one can predict how one pitcher can react to take his team into a winning position.
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