Jac Caglianone has been a key factor in fueling the Kansas City Royals’ successful start to June.
He also continues to fare well against the Texas Rangers.
After powering the Royals to a series-opening triumph over the visiting Rangers, Caglianone will look to help his team record a fourth straight victory on Wednesday night.
Kansas City entered June with a 22-37 record, and averaged 2.9 runs while losing 16 of its final 19 games in May. However, the Royals have averaged 5.3 runs and clubbed 10 homers while 6-2 in June.
“A lot of confidence, I think we’re not kind of letting previous days drag on into the next,” Caglianone told Royals.TV.
“Each day’s a new day. There’s plenty of new opportunities.”
Caglianone, the highly touted outfielder still trying to find his rhythm in his first full MLB season, was batting .236 as the calendar turned to June. Following a two-homer night that helped Kansas City overcome a 2-0 hole and win 5-3 over Texas on Tuesday, Caglianone is 10-for-21 with three home runs and seven RBIs in seven games this month.
He’s batting .348 in six career games versus Texas. Both of his two-home run games have come against the Rangers.
Caglianone, however, went 0-for-2 with a strikeout on May 29 against scheduled Texas starter MacKenzie Gore (4-5, 4.23 ERA), who was stellar against the Royals, allowing four hits and a walk over 6 1/3 scoreless innings of his team’s 9-1 victory. In two career starts versus Kansas City, the left-hander has yielded only one run over 13 1/3 innings for a 0.68 ERA.
However, Gore needs to rebound after he gave up four runs, nine hits and issued three first-inning walks over 4 2/3 of the Rangers’ 5-3 loss at St. Louis last week.
“It looked like maybe he was trying to overcook some of the balls to try to get a punchout, and then kind of left the balls up,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said.
Texas had won seven of nine prior to Tuesday’s defeat to close in on the .500 mark. The Rangers are 32-34 and haven’t hit .500 since they were 14-14 on April 26.
“Didn’t really think about (getting back to .500), just thinking about winning that first game of the series,” Schumaker, whose team went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position on Tuesday, told Rangers.TV.
Josh Jung had two more hits for the Rangers in the series opener, raising his batting average to .316. He’s 8-for-18 with four runs scored in four games versus Kansas City this season.
Jung homered off scheduled Royals starter Seth Lugo (2-4, 3.91 ERA) during Texas’ 7-6 win on May 30.
Lugo recorded three straight quality starts, including that outing at Texas, in which he gave up three runs (one earned) and six hits while striking out six in six innings. However, that run ended Thursday, when the veteran right-hander yielded five earned runs and six hits, including three homers, over five innings of Kansas City’s 8-6 win at Minnesota.
Though the Rangers rallied to beat the Royals in Lugo’s most recent appearance against them, he’s 1-0 with a 1.86 ERA in fgur career appearances (three starts) against Texas.
–Field Level Media
