ODDS ANALYSIS
The battle of Missouri was pretty one-sided for most of the last decade, but the Kansas City Royals are finally a team capable of hanging with the St. Louis Cardinals. The teams meet in the finale of a three-game set Sunday.
The teams entered the weekend series owning the best record in their respective leagues, bringing about talk of an I-70 World Series matchup, similar to the championship series these teams competed in 30 years ago with the Royals upending the Cards in seven games. That was KC’s last postseason trip before an improbable run to the World Series last season. The Cards meanwhile, made 13 trips to the postseason with a pair of World Series titles. This matchup is relevant again.
St. Louis is the most profitable team in the NL, in the black 11.30 units despite a recent slide that saw them lose five times in nine games before this series. They Royals trail only Houston as the best bet in the AL, up 11.56 units on the moneyline and 18.18 units on the runline with a 15-6 home record as part of the best 40-game start in franchise history.
PITCHING MATCHUP
St. Louis’ Michael Wacha (6-0, 2.13 ERA) became the National League’s second six-game winner with a quality start on Tuesday, allowing two runs on four hits with five strikeouts at New York. He’s allowed two runs or fewer in seven of eight starts and has yet to allow more than six hits in an outing.
Wacha is 0-1 with a 2.77 ERA in two career starts against the Royals. He was tagged with the loss giving up three runs on seven hits in six innings at KC on June 5, 2014.
Edinson Volquez (3-3, 2.74 ERA) shut down the Yankees in last Sundays’ series finale, pitching seven innings with five strikeouts and three hits en route to the team’s first shutout of the season. He didn’t issue a walk for the first time this season and lowered his ERA to 2.74.
Volquez is 4-6 with a 4.69 ERA in 15 career starts against the Cardinals spanning 86.1 innings. He’s handed out 41 bases on balls and surrendered eight home runs with a 1.30 WHIP.
QUOTE TO NOTE
“He’s got a lot of action on his pitches and if he’s commanding his pitches, he’ll always be successful. He can start the ball in on lefties and it works its way back in by a lot. I mean [catcher] Sal [Perez] has to work with the umpire because the pitches move so much.” – Royals manager Ned Yost on Edinson Volquez
LIVE BETTING or SITUATIONAL BETTING
The old baseball adage says good pitching stops good hitting. We’ll see if that holds true Sunday, and if it does the Cardinals get a win. Michael Wacha might be the front-runner for the NL Cy Young award after a quarter of the season, going 6-0 with a 2.13 ERA and 1.05 WHIP over 50.2 innings of his first eight starts. He’s tossed at least six innings in six of his eight starts, has allowed more than two earned runs just once and hasn’t given up more than six hits in any game. Those are pretty solid numbers. It’ll be a challenge to maintain that level of success against the Royals, who lead the AL in batting average, hits, and slugging percentage entering the weekend.
PROP TALK
Matt Carpenter is one of three St. Louis regulars hitting above .300 on a club that ranks near the top of the National League in batting. The Cards’ offense is often overlooked and overshadowed by a stout pitching staff that owns the best ERA in baseball, but you need to score to win games and Carpenter helps the Cards do that. He enters the weekend with a .311 average while leading the club in home runs with seven and RBIs. He’s enjoyed the I-70 rivalry hitting a robust .422 in his first 11 games against the Royals but hasn’t enjoyed much success against Edinson Volquez. We expect that to change with a few knocks and ribbies off the veteran righty.
ANALYSIS AND PREDICTION
The Cards traded away a frontline starter in Shelby Miller to get Jason Heyward, they lost Adam Wainwright to an Achilles injury and they still have the best staff in baseball. That says a lot about the team, its system and management and that’s why this franchise has been so successful for what seems like, forever. A solid offense often gets overlooked by the exploits of the pitching staff but the Cards don’t mind as long as they win games. And that’s what they do.
Kansas City has fielded some pretty good teams over the years, going back to the 1980s when George Brett, Frank White and Hal McRae were roaming the Kaufman Stadium turf, but none has been better through the first 40 games of a season than this group. The Royals hit, run the bases, field very well and the pitching, especially the bullpen, has been good. That makes for a title contending team and the Royals are that. This could very well be a preview of the Fall Classic so enjoy. One man who won’t enjoy it, though, is KC starter Edinson Volquez, who takes the loss in this one.
St. Louis 5, Kansas City 1
BookMaker will be the first online sportsbook to send out the baseball odds for this marquee matchup. BookMaker is going to have multiple betting options available for this nationally-televised baseball matchup. Live wagering during commercials offers an adjusted moneyline, individual inning run totals and next hitter results. Log in and start gambling during the game now!
Need to fund your account before the big game but don’t have your computer? No problem, BookMaker Sportsbook now offers a mobile betting cashier so you can deposit money directly from your smartphone. Don’t miss out on getting paid because you couldn’t bet, click here and deposit at BookMaker now! The ballgame between the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals will take place Sunday, May 24, 2015, at 2:10 p.m. ET at Kauffman Stadium. You can watch the contest live on the MLB Network.
