Milwaukee’s road trip continues in KC
Coming off of a tough series loss in Chicago, the Brewers will travel to Kansas City for a three-game set with the Royals. Kansas City is one of the surprises of the young season, sitting at 20-15 and in a virtual tie for second in a startlingly competitive AL Central. The Brewers, at 20-13, will look to stay atop the NL Central, where they lead the Cubs by percentage points.
Milwaukee has had a successful season so far, but they come into this series looking for some answers offensively and struggling to overcome depth issues on the pitching staff. One of those answers could be in the form of Christian Yelich, who seems to be very close to a return, but given the tricky nature of back injuries in general and Yelich’s long history with his own, we can file his return in the “I’ll believe it when I see it” category.
During Yelich’s absence, William Contreras has consistently been the focal point of the offense, but lately the team has struggled to support him. Many of the team’s young players have faltered offensively after hot starts; Jackson Chourio, Sal Frelick, Brice Turang, and Blake Perkins have all made contributions this season, but have struggled to varying degrees in the past week or two. One answer could be Joey Ortiz, who has swung the bat well of late but has been losing significant playing time to Oliver Dunn; another could be Tyler Black, who has had mixed results since coming up on Monday and may be better off if he is moved out of the three hole.
Kansas City has lost three straight series (to the Tigers, Blue Jays, and Rangers) but still sits five games over .500, though their record is slightly padded due to the fact that they are 6-1 against the lowly White Sox this season. The focal point of their offense is the young superstar Bobby Witt Jr., who is tied for the American League lead with 2.4 bWAR and leads the AL in runs scored (29), stolen bases (11, though he’s been caught four times), and triples (four, which is tied with Jarren Duran and CJ Abrams for the major league lead).
The Royals have also gotten a huge offensive boost from a somewhat surprising source, as their 33-year-old catcher, Salvador Perez, has had a huge offensive season. At the end of play Sunday he was hitting .328/.388/.566 with eight home runs and led the American League with 30 RBI. Perez has even walked 10 times, which puts him more than halfway toward his full-season total in both 2022 (18) and 2023 (19); Perez has never walked more than 28 times in a season, which is kind of incredible.
Probable Pitching Matchups
Monday, May 6 @ 6:40 p.m: Bryse Wilson (2-1) vs. Cole Ragans (2-2)
Bryse Wilson pitched well his last time out but took a hard-luck loss; he threw six innings (on 91 pitches and allowed just one run on four hits to a struggling Tampa Bay offense, but Milwaukee was shut out in that game. Wilson is not a stranger to starting: he was used as a starter basically his whole pro career until last season, so the fact that he’s been stretched out this much is not entirely surprising.
Cole Ragans is nominally the Royals’ ace, though they’ve had several excellent starting pitchers this year, all of whom the Brewers will see in this series. Ragans, who was acquired in the Aroldis Chapman trade with Texas last season, is a flamethrower who averages over 96 m.p.h. on his fastball but can crank it up to about 100 in rare instances. He got off to an excellent start in Kansas City last year: in 71.2 innings across 12 starts after the trade, he went 5-2 with a 2.64 ERA (170 ERA+) and 11.2 K/9. This season he’s allowed a few more runs, but there’s some bad luck involved: his 2.14 FIP is a full 1.3 runs better than his 3.44 ERA (which is still pretty good), and his strikeout percentage is virtually identical to last season.
Tuesday, May 7 @ 6:40 p.m: Colin Rea (3-0) vs. Seth Lugo (5-1)
Colin Rea is coming off what was probably his best start of the year on Wednesday, when he shut out the Rays for six innings while allowing four hits and two walks while striking out five. Rea’s stuff seems like it should be hittable, he’s allowing some homers, he’s not striking many batters out, and his walk rate is just okay. There’s a lot of blue on Rea’s Statcast page, but so far he has the results: Rea is 3-0 with a 2.67 ERA in 33.2 innings, though his 4.78 FIP belies danger.
Seth Lugo, meanwhile, who signed a modest free agent deal this winter, has been one of the league’s best pitchers so far. Lugo is 5-1 (a win total which leads the AL) and sports a shiny 1.60 ERA (252 ERA+), and even if his peripherals suggest he hasn’t been quite that good, he’s still had a very impressive season. The 34-year-old Lugo has had a solid career, but there’s nothing in his past to suggest that he’s ace material, so Brewer fans will hope that he shows his true colors (a solid but gettable middle-of-the-rotation piece) on Tuesday evening.
Wednesday, May 8 @ 1:10 p.m: Joe Ross (1-3) vs. Brady Singer (2-1)
Speaking of Brewers coming off of strong starts, Joe Ross is also riding his best start of the year, having pitched six innings of one-run ball on Friday at Wrigley. Ross has been a bit hit or miss lately, so the team will hope that the good version shows up.
On the other side, the Brewers will have their hands full with Brady Singer, who seems to finally be settling in as the pitcher that scouts imagined when he was a top-70 prospect in 2019 and 2020. Singer had a good year in 2022 but was poor in 2021 and 2023; so far in 2024, Singer holds a 2.45 ERA (164 ERA+) in 40.1 innings while striking out 9.4 batters per nine innings. Singer is an extreme ground-ball pitcher who doesn’t have a lot of heat on his fastball (he sits at 92), but his sinker has been tremendously effective this season. Singer is also uncommon in that he throws his slider a whopping 44% of the time; last season he was basically a two-pitch pitcher with the sinker and slider, but in 2024 he has been throwing a four-seamer as well (with the very occasional changeup mixed in).
Prediction
I don’t feel great about this series, even though Milwaukee has been good on the road and the Royals haven’t been great over the last couple of weeks. On paper, the Milwaukee starters are pretty outmatched in this series, and the offense has been a bit of a struggle lately. I think the Royals will take the series 2-1, with the wildcard exception of an unexpected Christian Yelich appearance rejuvenating the Brewer lineup.