Matt Quatraro, Royals manager, must find answers for his team when the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have tied for the best baseball record with Kansas City in a three game series starting Friday night.

Royals are currently on a five-game losing streak and 7-15 for June. Offense has been a problem during this current losing streak. Kansas City's five losses have seen just four runs, 23 hits and two shutouts.

The Rays completed a three-game sweep on Thursday with 4-0 victory by the Rays.

Quatraro's team, which is currently five games below.500 with a 38-43 record, stated after the loss that morale was not affected.

He said, "We won't give up on anyone." "We are not running away from anyone." We are not running away from the fact that our work hasn't met expectations. The best thing is to just keep fighting. ... We got a game tomorrow. "We have a chance to change the situation."

It will be difficult to beat the Dodgers who have won four games in a row and 10 out of their last 12. The Dodgers are 20 games above.500 and tied with the Detroit Tigers as MLB's top team at 51-31.

The Royals will send their rookie Noah Cameron (2-3 ERA, 2.08 ERA), to the mound on Friday in search of his first victory in almost a month. The 25-year old left-hander, aside from his six-run performance against the Yankees in June 2010, has only allowed five runs over the course of seven starts.

Last Saturday, he lost 5-1 to the Padres after allowing two runs over 5 1/3 innings. Cameron will be facing the Dodgers in his first career matchup.

Los Angeles will counter by sending Dustin May, a right-hander (4-5, 4.46 ERA) who has never faced the Royals before in 60 career appearances. He's coming off of a 7-3 defeat to the Washington Nationals, where he allowed three runs and five hits over six innings.

Kauffman Stadium is a great place to watch the Dodgers. They lead the majors in runs (459), hits (743), home runs (128), batting average (.265) and on- base-plus-slugging-percentage (.803).

Shohei Ohtani hit a home run for the third consecutive game as the Dodgers beat the Colorado Rockies 3-1 on Thursday to complete the three-game sweep. The star has dominated the Royals for his entire eight-year career. In 27 games, his batting average of.359 is the second best he has ever had against any other team. He has also homered four games in 11 at Kauffman Stadium.

Max Muncy had a great June with the Dodgers. He hit.328 over 22 games, which boosted his season average to.250. He also has six of his twelve home runs in the month.

The Dodgers third baseman, who spoke to The Orange County Register, said he was confident he could overcome a bad start and quell fan criticism.

Muncy said, "I love the fans for wanting their team to be best. I admire them for this." They want to make the Dodgers the best possible team. They always have someone else in mind who is better. That's OK. "I'm going to play as hard as possible for the team, the organization and the fans."

Field Level Media

(source: Reuters)