The Tampa Bay Rays arrived at Kauffman Stadium with a first-place lead and a five-game winning streak, and the Kansas City Royals were the club trying to steady itself after the last meeting between them. Tampa Bay was 48-33 entering the series, while Kansas City was 35-50.
That is why Rays Vs Royals was getting attention now: the gap in the standings was real, and the Rays had already shown they could handle this matchup. The Royals split a four-game series with Tampa Bay the previous week, but the Rays have stayed on top of a division that also includes the Yankees, Red Sox and Blue Jays.
Yandy Diaz was the reason the Rays could feel comfortable about the middle of the order. He had a four-hit game against the Royals last week, hit.391/.468/.489 in June, and entered with a major league-best.336 batting average. Junior Caminero added more force, hitting.415/.468/.927 with seven home runs in his last 11 games. Jonny Deluca had also been productive on the road, batting.309/.356/.509 away from home, while Taylor Walls’.203/.300/.261 line against lefties showed how much the matchup still depended on which side of the plate the Rays were facing.
The numbers behind the clubs told the same story. Tampa Bay was averaging 4.52 runs per game and allowing 4.22, while Kansas City was scoring 4.20 and giving up 5.02. The Rays had been the best team in baseball at home, but they were only 17-21 on the road and had not won a road series since mid-May. That split explained why a team that looked dominant in one setting could still leave questions when it traveled.
Pitching gave both teams a reason to believe they could still take a game, but the recent outings were uneven. Griffin Jax allowed just two unearned runs in five innings against the Royals last week and carried a 2.40 ERA in 11 starts, even though he had not gone more than five innings in a start. Shane McClanahan was less sharp against Kansas City, giving up six runs, and his road ERA of 4.38 contrasted sharply with his 2.21 mark at home. Lefties were hitting.164/.258/.327 against McClanahan, a reminder that even the better numbers came with limits.
The relief work came with its own contradictions. The Rays had a 4.40 ERA out of their relievers, ninth-worst in baseball, yet Bryan Baker had converted 21 of 24 save opportunities and allowed just one run in his last 14 innings. Garrett Cleavinger had held lefties to.185/.324/.222, while Kevin Kelly had allowed a 47.6 percent hard-hit rate that ranked second-highest in baseball. The Rays also had a 72 percent success rate in steals, but they were tied for being picked off the most, the sort of detail that can swing a game built on small edges.
Before Thursday, Tampa Bay was expected to go with Ian Seymour again after he tossed six no-hit innings against the Royals as the bulk arm behind opener Casey Legumina. Seymour threw his changeup 33 percent of the time, and opponents were hitting.141 against it. Stephen Kolek was expected to return from paternity leave by Thursday, leaving the Rays with another pitching choice to sort out as the series moved on.
The larger backdrop was harder to miss. The Rays were competing at the top while spending far less than teams such as the Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox and Blue Jays, and that contrast hung over a season in which financial imbalance keeps coming back into view. Kansas City, meanwhile, had to flush a difficult stretch and play better in the final homestand before the All-Star Game. For the Royals, the next game was more than a date on the schedule; it was a chance to stop carrying the last week with them.
