Royals vs. Rays Pick
Can the Kansas City Royals find a way to pick up a third straight road win over the Tampa Bay Rays when they meet up tonight at 7:10PM ET?
According to oddsmakers at BetDSI, the Rays are the clear favorite tonight, as they are getting odds of -190 to win this season. Kansas City is listed with a money line of +170 to prevail, while the over/under total is set at 7.5 runs.
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The Rays have Chris Archer (2-1, 3.57 ERA) on the mound to face Jason Hammel (1-3, 5.53) of the Royals. Archer is off to a pretty strong 2017 season, as he has 48 strikeouts in 45.1 innings of work and a WHIP of 1.21. Hammel hasn’t been much to write home about this year. He just got his first win of the season last week against the Indians, going six innings with one run and three hits allowed. On the season he has given up 17 runs in 27.2 innings of work. He has a WHIP of 1.70.
The Royals have put up the runs so far in this series. They picked up a 7-3 win on Monday and then followed that up with a 7-6 win on Tuesday night in 12 innings. KC is now 12-20 overall and 4-11 on the road while Tampa Bay is 16-19 overall and 11-9 at home.
The Royals fell behind 4-0 in the first inning on Tuesday, but slowly crawled their way back into the game and ultimately won on a home run from Mike Moustakas in the 12th. After a shaky start from Chris Young and a rough showing from relieve Travis Wood, the Royals pitched the last six innings scoreless, allowing just one hit with 10 strikeouts. Salvador Perez finished 3-for-4 at the plate, driving in two runs while hitting his seventh home run of the season.
Tuesday was a great comeback win for the Royals, but I don’t see them having much success against Archer in Tampa. He has 28 strikeouts in his last three starts at home and now faces a lineup that has struggled to produce runs this season, despite what they’ve done the last two days. Hammel has also been a mess for the majority of the year, so Tampa should be able to jump out to a quick lead once again.
MLB DAILY PREDICTION: TAMPA BAY RAYS -190