Kansas City @ Cleveland preview
Progressive Field
Last Meeting ( Aug 27, 2010 ) Kansas City 4, Cleveland 15
The Cleveland Indians had their way with the Kansas City Royals to open their three-game series on Friday.
Cleveland figures to have a tougher time generating offense when the series resumes on Saturday.
The Indians belted a trio of three-run home runs and scored a season-high in runs in a 15-4 victory on Friday. Cleveland is on a modest two-game win streak after losing five straight and moved within two games of Kansas City in the battle to stay out of the basement in the AL Central.
Cleveland banged out 17 hits, including three-run blasts from Matt LaPorta, Chris Gimenez and Jayson Nix. Kansas City managed 16 hits, but trailed by six runs after the second and 10-3 after five.
Kansas City has lost three of its last four, but has some reason for optimism heading into Saturday with Zack Greinke on the mound.
Greinke (8-11, 3.83 ERA) has not had the Cy Young Award-winning form he had last season, but he is starting to put it together again after a rough stretch. He was 1-2 with an 8.05 ERA in three starts before turning things around and going 1-0 with a 1.64 ERA in his last three outings.
He has been especially good against Cleveland of late.
Greinke is 7-7 in 20 career starts against the Indians with a 3.15 ERA, but most of those losses came early on in his career as Greinke has dominated the matchup in recent seasons. In his last eight starts against Cleveland, Greinke is 5-0 with a 2.63 ERA and he is 2-0 against the Indians this season.
Jeanmar Gomez (3-2, 3.62 ERA) gets the start for Cleveland and will be trying to regain his winning form after dropping his last two starts.
Gomez went 3-0 in his first four starts and did not allow more than two runs in his first five outings. He got rocked his last time out though, yielding eight runs and 11 hits in three innings of an 8-1 loss at the Detroit Tigers on Sunday.
Gomez pitched well against the Royals earlier this month, but was outdueled by Greinke. Gomez allowed two runs and seven hits in six innings in Kansas City's 2-1 victory on Aug. 17. On that day, Greinke gave up just one run and five hits in six innings and the Royals' bullpen chipped in three innings of scoreless relief.
Cleveland has won the season series between the clubs for six straight years, but the Royals hold a 5-4 edge this season with nine games left on the schedule.