Not exactly a premium matchup of World Series, but the Minnesota Twins will play host to the Kansas City Royals on Tuesday night, pinning two teams with their eyes towards the future against each other. These divisions rivals won’t have aces battling it out on Tuesday, but it does look to be a fair matchup based on the starters as the Twins will go with Aaron Sledge and the Royals haven’t announced their starter as their rotation is decimated by injury and ineffectiveness.
First pitch for the game between the Royals and Twins is scheduled for Tuesday, July 10, 2018, at 8:10 p.m. ET at Target Field. The matchup will be shown on FS1.
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Odds Analysis
The Twins had lost six games in a row and 11 of its last 13 to fall 13-games under-.500 before their four-game weekend series against the Orioles. Playing Baltimore was just what the Twins needed, sweeping Baltimore in the series and scored 26 runs in those four games.
The Minnesota offense really picked things up after struggling leading up to the series.
Overall, the Twins are not a good hitting team. They’ve got a .238 team average and .308 team OBP. They’re saddled with a terrible year from Brian Dozier who is hitting .222 and an even worse year from Logan Morrison and his .192 average.
Still, this team’s hitting well right now. Dozier had a good series, belting his 13th homer on Sunday. Overall, the team scored 10 runs on Sunday including Dozier’s bomb and Eduardo Escobar’s 14th long ball of the season.
Escobar is one of a few Twins players exceeding expectations. The free agent to be has gotten a ton of playing time and has delivered with a .844 OPS. He and Eddie Rosario are the lone bright spots in an otherwise disappointing offense.
The Royals have even fewer bright spots and don’t have the positive weekend to fall back on like Minnesota. They’ve lost nine straight games and have scored fewer runs than any other team, even the Orioles. They’ve got a league low 70 homers and a .298 team OBP.
Mike Moustakas is not long for this team and has 17 home runs and 56 RBIs, but even he has a meager OBP at .313. Other than him, Whit Merrifield is really the only threat. This is another team looking to go young and shed veterans. We’ve already seen the team send a few starters to the bullpen and recently just bench Alcides Escobar in favor of Adalberto Mondesi who has potential, but himself has .506 career OPS over parts of three seasons.
Probable Pitchers
Aaron Sledge will start for the Twins in a spot start, looking to prove himself worthy of the fifth spot in the rotation throughout the course of this lost season.
Sledge got his first career win against the Orioles in his last appearance, going six innings and allowed just a single run. That’s promising, of course, but against Baltimore, it’s hardly telling. A start against the Royals is another easy matchup for the youngster.
Including a cup of coffee last year, Sledge is 1-1 with a 4.73 ERA in 26.2 big league innings in his career. He, however, has looked better than that in 11.1 innings this year. In Triple-A, he was pitching to a 5-6 record and 3.55 ERA. He was finding success, but had a meager 2.89 strikeout to walk ratio.
In his brief Major League career, Sledge has just five strikeouts in 11.1 innings. In the minors, he’s striking out a bit more—6.6 per nine innings—but his rate is still well below average.
The young righty is not going to blow out the opposition. Can he get by with mediocre stuff? He’ll need great command and movement for that.
Thankfully, Sledge will have a poor offense going against him. He also won’t have a great pitcher to try and outduel. The Kansas City rotation is in shambles right now. The Royals have yet to announce their starter.
Trevor Oaks took the start last time around the rotation and its originally Ian Kennedy spot. Kennedy is still on the DL and Oaks was since sent down to Triple-A.
Kennedy could come back to take the spot as he’ll be eligible to return. If he does start, the Royals will at least have an experienced Major League arm make the start though he’s just 1-8 with a 5.11 ERA and 1.418 WHIP this season.
The veteran hasn’t posted a sub-5 ERA since 2016 and while he’s had a few very strong seasons in his career, the now 33-year old appears past his prime. His strikeout rate has stayed steady and his walk rate is within his career norms, but he’s been exceptionally home run prone the last couple years.
In his career against the Twins, Kennedy is 4-4 with a 4.52 ERA, but he’s 1-2 with a 6.75 ERA in five starts at Target Field.
Live Betting
The Twins don’t have a good offense, but they’ve been playing better the last couple days against a team only slightly worse in the standings than the Royals.
Minnesota doesn’t have the edge in the rotation, but even with the inexperience and limited upside of Sledge, they should be at least even given Kennedy’s struggles the last couple years, plus his injury.
That leaves the bullpen as one area that KC can make up some ground in this matchup, except the Royals no longer have a good bullpen either.
Once the staple of the Royals’ playoff teams, the KC bullpen is now ranked the worst in the AL, even behind the much-maligned Indians’ pen.
Kansas City’s pen has combined to pitch to a 5.28 ERA and that was with 25.2 innings of a 1.05 ERA from Kelvin Herrera who is now pitching for the Nationals.
Without Herrera, the bullpen doesn’t have a closer. Of course, the pen doesn’t get many save opportunities anyway.
While the Twins bullpen isn’t one of the best in the game, the 4.44 ERA does represent a noticeable improvement over the Royals.
Fernando Rondey has been a solid closer even at 41-years of age and Addison Reed and others at least give Paul Molitor veteran arms that can be called upon to close out games and bridge the gap to the ninth.
MLB Pick
It’s hard to put much faith in Sledge after only two games and one start, but the rookie right-hander held the Orioles at bay and have another easy matchup against an equally ineffective K.C. lineup.
Look for Sledge to do his job and keep the Royals generally off the board into the sixth inning. From there, the Twins will turn the ball to their bullpen which has had its own struggles this year, but has been better than the Herrera-less Royals’ bullpen.
In the end, look for a rather easy win for a Twins team. While they’ve been a major disappointment this season, the offense did break out against the Orioles last series and proved while they’re not a contending team, they’re much closer to winning than those teams—like the Royals—dwelling at the bottom of the AL totem pole.
MLB Odds: Twins 8, Royals 4
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