Game Seventy-Five: Kansas City Royals at Oakland Athletics

This isn’t the Sewage Series this year.

The Kansas City Royals will take on the Philadelphia Kansas City Oakland Las Vegas Sacramento(?) A’s this evening at the Coliseum in Oakland. The Royals will look to even the series today after dropping last night’s opener 7-5.

Kansas City will start Cole Ragans. Ragans has made about half of the starts that he will make this season, assuming health, and he is firmly in the AL Cy Young discussion. He has allowed more than three runs in just two of his 15 starts thus far and has completed six innings in 11 of them. He has kept the strikeout gains that he made after arriving in Kansas City last summer while cutting his walk rate. Ragans last started against the A’s on August 23 last year, allowing just two baserunners while striking out 11 across six shutout innings.

The A’s will counter with Luis Medina. Medina has missed time with injury this year and just joined the big league rotation earlier this month. He went 5.2 strong innings against Atlanta in his season debut but has struggled in his subsequent two starts. He has a five-pitch mix anchored by a mid-90s fastball and mid-80s slider. He posted solid strikeout rates throughout his minor league career but has always had walk issues. Medina has never pitched against Kansas City.

First pitch: 8:40 pm CDT

Royals lineup

A’s lineup