Fausto Carmona is set to lead off the series in Kansas City that begins tonight against KC starter Zack Greinke. The Royals are 3-3 coming into the series after taking two from the Chicago White Sox in their season-opening series and one out of three from the Yankees. Carmona’s only start this season was part of a scary opening series against Texas in Arlington. Carmona was the loser in a game where he went for 5 innings and 95 pitches before his 6 earned runs caused Eric Wedge to go to the bullpen. Carmona wasn’t sharp, but looks to bounce back against KC.
The rest of the series shapes up to be a veritable redemption tour for Cleveland starters as Pavano gets Tuesday’s game vs. Kyle Davies, followed by Jeremy Sowers (remember his two shutouts in 2006?) who looks like he will get a start against Sidney “I fought the law and the law won” Ponson.
The Tribe seemed to finally be getting the meaningful hits they needed to get in the series finale yesterday vs. Toronto. They will look to turn that sole victory into a winning streak in Kansas City. Here’s hoping the bats get going and that the starting pitching goes well enough to hand leads to the bullpen. It sure would be nice (as I noted earlier today) to see Kerry Wood get some meaningful appearances at the end of games.
UPDATE: I was led astray by other sources and now it appears that the Indians will call on Aaron Laffey instead of Jeremy Sowers to pitch the series finale against the Royals. Honestly, now that I think about it, I should have known better anyway. Laffey has one start in Columbus so far and it didn’t go well. 3.1 innings pitched with a 13.5 ERA doesn’t sound like callup material.
