Cleveland Indians-Kansas City Royals Series Preview

Cleveland Indians-Kansas City Royals Series Preview 6/13-6/15

The first place Cleveland Indians (35-27) head to Kansas City to take on the Royals (32-30) for a three-game series at Kaufmann Stadium. This is the Indians first trip to Kansas City this year after the two clubs have played seven in Cleveland. The Indians have dominated the season series to this point, winning six of the seven contests. Probable pitching matchups for the series are as follows:

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"Monday (6/13): Carlos Carrasco (2-1, 3.48 ERA) vs Edinson Volquez (5-6, 4.25)Tuesday (6/14): Josh Tomlin (8-1, 3.48) vs Chris Young (2-6, 6.37)Wednesday (6/15): Corey Kluber (6-6, 3.65) vs Ian Kennedy (4-5, 4.06)"

Josh Tomlin will look to become just the second American League pitcher to reach the nine-win plateau (Chris Sale, 10).  The last time Royals’ starter Chris Young faced the Cleveland Indians was back on June 5th when he allowed four home runs. Corey Kluber will look to continue his dominant run of late. For all the talk of his “down” year, he’s now second in the American League in fWAR at 2.4 (Jose Quintana, 2.8).

Tribe rookie Tyler Naquin will look to stay hot at the plate. Since returning from the minors at the beginning of June, he’s hitting .346 with four home runs and a 1.279 OPS.  The four home runs are tops for the Indians this month, with both Mike Napoli and Carlos Santana with three. The Indians will likely be without starting third baseman Juan Uribe for at least the first game after he took a 106 mph grounder off the bat of Mike Trout to the groin area in yesterday’s game. He was carted off the field and diagnosed with a testicular contusion, the second Tribe player to suffer the injury in the past week (Yan Gomes in Seattle).

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The Indians enter the series with a three-game lead over both the Royals and the Detroit Tigers in the Central division. Following their series in Kansas City the Tribe will return home to begin a six-game homestand on Friday featuring the Chicago White Sox and Tampa Bay Rays.

Lineups for tonight’s game are as follows: