MLB - 963 Kansas City Royals @ 964 Tampa Bay Rays
(Starting Pitchers: E. Santana vs J. Hellickson)
We have in here a good edge in terms of offense and starting pitcher favoring the Rays tonight. Erwin Santana has been solid lately, but he has been alternating great quality starts that have been happening against teams that aren't good versus RH pitchers like Houston (#28) and Oakland (#15), with the exception being a good start at Texas. The problem for Santana is that he has been struggling against power lineups, where he has been struggling by allowing some homeruns, a clear problem for him: 3 HR's vs St Louis; 4 HR's vs LA Angels; 2 HR's vs NY Yankees. Tampa Bay's offense is a power lineup and they are #10 in the league versus RH pitchers and #7 on ISO (Isolated Power) with .166 this season and .184 over the last 14 days! If we add to this the fact that the Rays' hitters know Santana very well (.286 BA and .875 OPS against him on 126 AB's), we can be sure that Santana will struggle tonight.
On the other side, Kansas City has been playing well and they are coming from a nice home span, where they went 7-2 on those games. However, those wins were mostly due some great pitching. Their starting pitchers never allowed more than three runs to their opponents on these games, but offensively wise, the Royals has been struggling, especially against RH pitchers, with just .219 BA over the last 10 games and a poor .653 OPS (#29) for the season. Jeremy Hellickson struggled heavily early in the season, but he has been pitching much better lately. He has faced Baltimore (#3 vs RHP), Cleveland (#12 vs RHP) and Toronto (#8 vs RHP) in three of his last four outings, but he allowed just 0, 3 and 2 ER on these outings respectively! Hellickson faced Kansas City in early May and he struggled with four runs allowed in five innings, but now that he is living his best moment of the season so far, I expect him to dominate the Royals tonight, helping the Rays in getting an easy win in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 964 Tampa Bay Rays ML (w/ J. Hellickson) @ -142 / 1.70 on Bovada
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