Jason Vargas will start ALCS Game 4 for Royals

Game 3 of the American League Championship Series was rained out on Monday, giving the Royals and Orioles all kinds of adjustments they could make to their playoff rotation. While Royals manager Ned Yost made it immediately clear that scheduled starter Jeremy Guthrie would still take his turn in what was now Tuesday’s Game 3, the starter for Game 4 was left up in the air. That was the case only for a day, though, as Yost stated that the Royals would go with Jason Vargas as planned for Game 4.

The reasoning is simple enough, with Yost (per Andy McCullough) stating that he wanted to get his ace James Shields and rookie Yordano Ventura an extra day of rest where he could. Shields would have been pitching on normal rest but making his fourth start of the postseason were he to take the hill in Game 4, and Ventura was lifted from his most recent start with tightness in his shoulder. Yost also admitted things might be different if the Royals weren’t up two games to none in the series.

This makes sense for more reasons than just extra rest, however. Vargas is homer-prone, so using him in pitcher-friendly Kauffman Stadium in Game 4 does the Royals a favor. Rather than pushing things around and ending up in a situation where he might need to make a start in Baltimore, Vargas can face a good lineup in a park meant to silence them. Orioles Park at Camden Yards is one of the better homer parks out there, so it makes sense for Yost to cause any chance of Vargas pitching there to disappear.

If the Royals lose one of the next two games at home, they’ll have James Shields to try to clinch the series in Kansas City in Game 5. If they lose their next two games and the Orioles even up the series, they’ll have Shields on the mound to try to secure a win before heading back to Baltimore for Game 6. There are no more days off in the series allowing either side extra rest thanks to Monday’s rainout, so setting themselves up for a plan like this up 2-0 is the right, albeit safe, move.