Kansas City @ Cleveland preview
Progressive Field
Last Meeting ( Aug 19, 2010 ) Cleveland 7, Kansas City 3
The Cleveland Indians and Kansas City Royals are once again playing games down the stretch with an eye toward the future. Both teams will be looking to stay out of the American League Central Division basement when they start a three-game series on Friday.
The Royals are 18 games behind the front-running Minnesota Twins in the division but are three games clear of the Indians, who are mired in last place and are 25 games under .500 (51-76).
Kansas City took two out of three from Cleveland last week at home and looks to put some more distance between the two clubs this weekend at Jacobs Field.
The Royals are half way through a six-game road trip and are coming off a 4-3 win at Detroit on Wednesday, which enable them to salvage one game from the three-game set.
The Royals send Bryan Bullington to the mound tonight to see if he can recapture the form that recently earned him his first major league victory in impressive fashion.
The first overall pick in the 2002 draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates, Bullington (1-2, 4.50 ERA) shut down the New York Yankees, allowing two hits in eight innings of a 1-0 victory on Aug. 15. In his most recent outing, Bullington gave up six runs and 11 hits to the Chicago White Sox on Saturday.
Bullington had toiled in Cleveland and Toronto before signing as a minor league free agent with Kansas City after last season. He made three appearances, including two starts, for the Indians in 2008 and pitched in four games for the Blue Jays in 2009.
Getting the start for the Indians is Josh Tomlin, who will be making his sixth start of the season and who has also had success against the Yankees this year. The problem is he hasn't had much against anyone else.
Tomlin (1-3, 3.86) gave up one run and three hits in seven innings against the Yankees in a 3-1 victory on July 27. That was Tomlin's major league debut and his lone win to date. He hasn't pitched all that badly in his four starts since but is 0-3 in that span.
A 19th-round pick out of Texas Tech in 2006, Tomlin is coming off the worst start of his brief major league career. He allowed five runs and seven hits in six innings of a 5-2 loss to the Detroit Tigers on Saturday.