Kansas City Royals at Los Angeles Dodgers

Michael Wacha (5-8, 3.44 ERA) takes the ball for Kansas City looking to build on a start where he worked 5.2 innings and allowed just 1 earned run against the Twins. Across the way is the far bigger story: Blake Snell, activated off the 60-day injured list, gets his first shot back at Dodger Stadium since undergoing elbow surgery. His last time out, a brief cameo against Atlanta back in May, lasted only 3 innings before the shoulder and elbow issues shut him down again. Tonight is as much a health check as it is a start.

The lineups around both pitchers tell two very different stories. Ohtani is hitting .301 with 8 homers over his last 26 games and has been the engine of a Dodgers offense that still ranks top-5 in runs scored despite the club stumbling to a 2-8 mark over its last 10. Tommy Edman, on the other hand, is ice cold — 4-for-38 in his last 10 — which is the kind of soft spot that keeps a laden Dodgers order from being totally automatic. On the Royals' side, Jac Caglianone has been the one bright light, riding a 9-game hitting streak into this series after a multi-homer night against the Cubs.

Where this game could get sloppy is the bullpens. Kansas City's relief corps blew a 3-2 lead in the series opener, with Noah Cameron and John Schreiber combining to hand the game right back to L.A., and the Royals still own one of the league's worst marks in runs allowed. The Dodgers aren't spotless either — Blake Treinen, Brock Stewart, Ben Casparius and Brusdar Graterol are all out, thinning a pen that's had to lean harder on the front line. Neither side is walking into this one with a fully trusted relief unit.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	R	H	E
KC	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	3	0	0	4	6	0
LAD	0	1	0	0	0	0	2	1	0	1	5	9	1

Kansas City is buried at 49-71 and has dropped 2 straight, but the Royals aren't just showing up to get run over — Bobby Witt Jr. remains a threat on the bases and at the plate, and Sunday's near-upset of the division leaders was a bullpen collapse away from a much different result. In a bit of a strange subplot, the Royals also brought in 38-year-old Craig Kimbrel this week, a legacy-type signing that has little to do with this year's stretch run and more to do with getting a future Hall of Fame arm one more big-league inning.

The Dodgers are still comfortably in first place in the NL West, 7.5 games clear of Arizona, and that cushion is exactly why a game like this — against a 49-71 team, with a starter working his way back from surgery — carries real intrigue. If Snell looks anything like himself, it's one more piece slotting into a title-caliber rotation. If he doesn't, the questions about his health only get louder.

Sources