New York Yankees vs. Kansas City Royals: Domingo German vs. Homer Bailey

For maybe the first time since Opening Day, things are going pretty well in Yankeeland. The team is fresh off a two-game sweep of the struggling Boston Red Sox and starting tonight, will play host to the Kansas City Royals. The Yankees’ bats started to come alive against the Red Sox, so hopefully they’ll stay hot against one of the worst pitching staffs in the league.

The Royals will give Homer Bailey the start tonight in the first game of this four-game set. Bailey spent his entire career with the Cincinnati Reds up until this offseason. He went to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Yasiel Puig trade but LA released him almost immediately. He signed a minor league deal with the Royals and has done about as well as expected. In 17 innings, Bailey owns a 5.29 ERA. However, he does have 21 strikeouts to go with that line.

Domingo German gets the ball for the Yankees tonight. German’s last outing was actually a relief appearance last week against the Chicago White Sox. He threw two perfect innings and added four strikeouts along the way. Tonight, German faces a pretty average Royals’ lineup. As Ryan pointed out, they don’t strike out a ton, but other than that, this is a very middle-of-the-road offensive team. Granted, Alex Gordon, Hunter Dozier, and Whit Merrifield have all gotten off to solid starts, but overall this team has only been worth 99 wRC+ so far this year.

The Yankees lineup looks just slightly different tonight than it did last night. Clint Frazier is in left field after DHing the last two games, and Mike Ford will make his major league debut tonight as the DH. Tyler Wade gets the call to play second, and DJ LeMahieu will man the hot corner. Giovanny Urshela and Mike Tauchman will be available off the bench. First pitch is at 6:35pm ET, on YES for TV viewers and WFAN for radio listeners. You can also stream the game on fuboTV.