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Part of the reason the Boston Red Sox have raced out to one of the best records in baseball is because their pitching staff isn't nearly as embarrassing as it was last year. Rick Porcello has had a major turnaround, and he's a big reason for the successful start to the year for this club. He'll get the ball on Monday Night Baseball for the Sox this week against the Kansas City Royals.
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PITCHING MATCHUP
Porcello was about as bad as it got last year. His 4.92 ERA was atrocious, and he couldn't seem to keep the ball in the park. He's still having home run problems, something that could come back to bite him against a Kansas City offense which blasted seven home runs in two games combined on Tuesday and Wednesday against the Yankees, but the rest of the peripheral numbers are really coming into play.
Live bettors will love the fact that Porcello is averaging just under a strikeout per inning with 46 in 46.1 innings, and only walking 10 men in that time is consistent for his career.
Yordano Ventura has just a 4.62 ERA this year, and the big concern we have with him is all of the walks. The Red Sox don't have the most patient lineup in the world, but it's tough to start flailing against a man who has 28 walks in just 37 innings of work.
What's worse for Ventura is that his strikeout rate is down as well at just 13.3 percent, and that's not going to cut it for a man who had a K/9 last year of 8.60.
Ventura has only had one start this year in which he averaged fewer than 16.3 pitches per inning, and if that turns out to be the case again in this one, this is going to be a long night for the KC pen.
ADVANCED STATS
The Red Sox are hitting the ball at a rather unsustainable pace at this point, but live bettors should realize there just isn't a hole in this lineup. Xander Bogaerts, Travis Shaw, Jackie Bradley Jr. and David Ortiz are all betting at least .320. Four guys on this team are slugging at least .500. Six have OPS marks of at least .790.
If there's a knock here though, it's that the Red Sox flat out strikeout too much. There isn't a particularly patient hitter on this team outside of Ortiz, but the fact that seven men are on pace to strikeout at least 80 times this year is a concern.
Ventura can take advantage of that for sure with his raw talent, but if the Sox put the ball in play, there's a really good chance they can put crooked numbers up in a hurry, something live bettors can't forget.
TALKING BULLPENS
The one thing Ned Yost's team doesn't have a shortage of, it's guys in the bullpen who can eat innings. All four of Dillon Gee, Danny Duffy, Chien-Ming Wang and Luke Hochevar have been starters in the recent past, and any of the four could be called upon in this game should Ventura struggle.
KC's bullpen as a whole has 109 strikeouts against 37 walks in 112.2 innings of work. There's a lot of alto queso coming out of this pen, so the quicker Ventura leaves this game, the better served the Royals might ultimately be.
MLB Odds at BookMaker.eu
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