Visiting Some Friends in Unexpectedly High Places: Brewers at Royals, May 6-8

At the start of the season, most people assumed the AL Central would be a Minnesota Twins 162-game cake walk into the postseason. Things have not panned out that way, and a month in, there’s a tangle at the top. The Guardians hold first place, with the Royals immediately behind them. The Kansas City roster has is a nimble blend of May and December, and for the moment, they look like legitimate contenders.

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Monday, May 6th
Bryse Wilson (2-0 3.00 ERA) vs. Cole Ragans (2-2 3.44 ERA)
Is the Top-100 prospect potential scouts once saw in Bryse Wilson coming to fruition in a Brewers uniform? It might be too early to say so for sure, but four hits with one earned run over six innings is certainly good value from a guy acquired for virtually nothing, who spent last season in a long relief role. It will be interesting to see how far beyond the 24-inning mark this level of production can go, but if it does perdure, the Brewers have quite the valuable young arm in the 26-year-old Wilson.

Prognosticators and statheads both loved Ragans at the start of the season, with some even saying he was a Cy Young candidate. The fireballer hasn’t been quite as dominant to start the season as some might have predicted, but his most recent start against the Blue Jays may have reaffirmed the ace narrative surrounding him. Ragans struck out nine over 6 2/3 innings, in a masterful start that snapped a three-game losing streak for the Royals. If he brings that same juice in his start against the Crew, it could be trouble for Milwaukee.

Tuesday, May 7th
Colin Rea (3-0 2.67 ERA) vs. Seth Lugo (5-1 1.60 ERA)
Honestly, it’s difficult to explain the continued excellence of Colin Rea. A 1.22 WHIP doesn’t generally lend itself to a sub-3.00 ERA, and the FIP suggests that luck continues to be Rea’s best friend, but start after start transpires and Rea’s success continues. There was one rough start against the Yankees, wherein Rea surrendered runs on three home runs, but he followed that up immediately with six shutout innings against the Rays. The delightful mystery continues.

Speaking of mysteries, Seth Lugo spent seven years in the Mets organization, making the occasional start but mostly pitching out of the pen. Upon hitting free agency, he stretched out for the Padres and pitched well enough to decline the mutual option in his deal; signed with the Royals for $45 million over three years; and is suddenly pitching like an ace. The peripherals, however, give cause for skepticism. The ERA may sit below 2.00, but the FIP is at 3.44. He may be limiting action on the base paths, but he's pitching to contact and getting hit hard. It’s not dissimilar to his counterpart; he's defying metrics and making it work.

Wednesday, May 8th
Joe Ross (1-3 4.65 ERA) vs. Brady Singer (2-1 2.45 ERA)
In what was ultimately an unimpressive series for the Crew in Chicago, Ross was a bit of a bright spot. In six innings, he gave up as many hits, but surrendered only one one in what felt like a fitting no-decision. Hopefully, Milwaukee can provide him with a bit more run support this time, as a typical Ross start tends to yield a bit more offense from the opposing team. 

It isn’t shaping up to be an easy road series for Milwaukee’s offense. After Ragans and Lugo comes 2018 first-rounder Brady Singer. Singer has a four-pitch repertoire, but relies heavily on his slider and sinker, and it’s not hard to see why. He’s at the very top of the league in getting ground balls, and his control is elite when he’s sticking to his offspeed pitches. Of the three pitchers the Brewers are scheduled to face (all of them quite good), Singer might be the most difficult.

Players To Watch

Cole Ragans: When the moves you make culminate in a World Series win, you’re sort of disqualified from complaining about what you sacrifice to get there, but it has to sit in the back of Rangers fans' minds that they traded a potential cornerstone starting pitcher for late-stage Aroldis Chapman. With the move from Texas behind him, Ragans looks poised to begin a new legacy in Royal blue, and he’s doing so with aplomb so far. 

Salvador Perez: It seems impossible, but Perez will only be turning 34 years old immediately after this series wraps. He's been manning the backstop at Kauffman Stadium since 2011 and amassed eight All-Star appearances, five Gold Gloves, four Silver Sluggers, a World Series MVP Award, and (for good measure) an AL Comeback Player Of The Year award in 2020 when he returned from serious injury and almost immediately played to his previous standard. Perez is arguably a Hall Of Fame candidate, and the 1.6 WAR he’s already put up this year only adds to that argument.

Jackson Chourio: Is it time to worry? In the grand scheme of things, the answer is “of course not.” He’s freshly 20 years old, and still a strong contender to make his contract look like an all-timer in terms of team-friendly deals for young players. Still, it seems big-league pitching has caught up to Chourio, and hurlers have learned to suppress his bat to the tune of an ugly .223/.270/.359 slash line.

Trevor Megill: As the Brewers add “suspensions” to the list of causes for pitcher attrition, the focus will be on how they can cobble together innings. Luckily, among the list of capable potential game-enders, Trevor Megill has emerged as a steady hand. It’s too early to really project where Megill could be over the course of a full season, but his stuff looks convincing. Not bad for a player whom they got for even less than they gave up to land Wilson.

Predictions
This might be the hardest prediction yet, because both teams share some distinctly potent idiosyncrasies. Small-market teams composed of brilliant young players, anchored by a solid core of veterans defying casual fans and prognosticators alike. That said, the pitching the Brewers are scheduled to face just looks too nasty. The offense isn’t in full-on hibernation, but in a bit of a tough stretch, it is fair to say it’s flagging. I think the Royals walk away with two wins here.