Royals vs. Rays Pick
Will the Tampa Bay Rays be able to salvage a split with the Kansas City Royals when the two teams close out their four-game series today at 1:10PM ET?
According to oddsmakers at BetDSI, the Rays are a slight favorite at home today, as they are getting odds of -115 to win. The Royals are getting a money line of +105 to prevail, while the over/under total for the contest is listed at 7.5 runs.
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The Rays will be sending Jake Odorizzi (2-1, 2.88 ERA) to the mound today to face Jason Vargas (4-1, 1.19) of the Royals. Vargas has been pretty outstanding this season. He has allowed one run or none in five of his six outings. He has 35 strikeouts with just seven walks and a WHIP of 0.98. Odorizzi hasn’t been far off, as he has allowed two runs or less in four straight starts. He has four walks with 20 strikeouts and a WHIP of just 0.76.
The Royals took the first two games of the series, 7-3 and 7-6, but the Rays bounced back in a big way on Wednesday with a 12-1 victory. KC is now 12-21 overall and 4-12 on the road while the Rays are 17-19 overall and 12-9 at home.
Tampa didn’t do much wrong on Wednesday, as they established a lead in the first inning and rolled from there. With plenty of run support, Chris Archer was pretty dominant on the mound. He went eight scoreless innings, allowing just five hits with 11 strikeouts. Jason Hammel managed to go seven innings for the Royals, but still gave up seven runs on 13 hits. Colby Rasmus had three hits and four RBI to lead Tampa at the plate while Logan Morrison had his ninth home run of the season and drove in three.
This should be a great pitching matchup. Odorizzi and Vargas have both been able to wheel and deal this season. They also both allow few baserunners, so the runs should be at a premium. The under could certainly hit, even at just 7.5 runs. When it comes to the game winner, I will go with the Rays at home to build off their hitting performance from Wednesday. The season is still pretty young, but Tampa has scored nearly double the runs the Royals have. I have more trust that Tampa can score on Vargas than KC can score on Odorizzi.
MLB DAILY PREDICTION: TAMPA BAY RAYS -115