Yankees at Royals
The New York Yankees are in first place in the American League East while the Kansas City Royals are last in the AL Central, but the two teams are moving in different directions. The Royals will try to secure their fifth straight win and hand the Yankees their fifth loss in six games when they host the opener of a three-game series on Tuesday.
Kansas City ranks last in the major leagues with a total of 119 runs scored but showed signs of breaking out of its collective slump with three home runs in a 9-8, come-from-behind win over the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday - including a 464-foot blast by Jorge Soler that marked his first homer of the season. "I don't think I've seen a ball hit harder than that in this park," Royals manager Ned Yost told reporters. "It was on a dead line over the center-field wall. It was smoked." The Yankees smoked plenty of balls on Sunday as well and totaled 18 runs in a doubleheader but only ended up splitting the set with the Houston Astros. Veteran left-hander CC Sabathia will try to make sure Soler and company don't keep the offensive surge going while righty Jason Hammel starts for Kansas City on Tuesday.
TV: 8:15 p.m. ET, MLB Network, YES (New York), FSN Kansas City
PITCHING MATCHUP: Yankees LH CC Sabathia (2-2, 5.77 ERA) vs. Royals RH Jason Hammel (1-4, 5.97)
Sabathia is no longer the Cy Young candidate he was during his prime and is stuck in a rut that saw him allow a total of 22 runs in 20 2/3 innings over his last four starts. The California native turned in his longest outing of that span at Cincinnati last Tuesday, when he yielded five runs in six frames and absorbed the loss. Sabathia is seeing Kansas City for the first time since beating the Royals in 2015.
Hammel is enduring a rough transition back to the AL after spending the last 2 1/2 seasons with the Chicago Cubs in the NL. The veteran followed up his first win of the season by getting ripped for seven runs - six earned - and 13 hits in seven innings at Tampa Bay on Wednesday. Hammel, who began his career with the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East, is 4-4 with a 4.78 ERA in 19 career games - 13 starts - against the Yankees.
WALK-OFFS
1. Yankees LF Brett Gardner went 6-for-9 with four runs scored in Sunday's doubleheader.
2. Kansas City CF Lorenzo Cain is 11-for-24 during a six-game hitting streak.
3. New York rookie RF Aaron Judge leads the majors with 14 home runs entering Monday.