AL Baseball Preview: Kansas City Royals at New York Yankees
The Bronx Bombers haven’t looked particularly impressive lately and they’ve got another tricky game on Thursday as they conclude a four game series with the Kansas City Royals. The Yankees got a strong performance from Ivan Nova on Wednesday to salvage a victory after dropping the first two games of the series. The pitching really hasn’t been the problem for New York-it’s been their offense. In fact what is usually a strong point for New York has been a problem for much of the past month. Kansas City has been playing decent baseball lately and is flirting with the .500 mark as the All Star Break draws closer.
Andy Pettite has been one of the most dependable fixtures in the New York rotation for years but he’s not been up to his usual form this season. His ERA is 4.37 and New York has won only 8 of his 15 starts. He’s been even worse at home where his ERA balloons to 5.48 and the Yankees have lost 5 of his 8 assignments. They catch something of break due to the fact that Kansas City doesn’t hit LHP especially well (.231 BA and 3.2 runs per game against southpaws in 2013) but the way the Yankees offense has been sputtering that might be enough. In any other season Pettite could very well shut down the Royals but not this season.
New York won’t have it easy facing Kansas City’s Ervin Santana who has pitched very well-though the Royals haven’t done their part in many of his starts. On the season Santana has a 2.90 ERA but the Royals have only won 8 of his 17 starts. On the road Santana’s numbers are even better with a 2.52 ERA but KC has lost 5 of his 8 road games. Kansas City should have plenty of confidence given their performance in this series so far and due to the fact that they’ve played well at Yankee Stadium in recent years winning five of their last nine games here. Until the Yankees’ bats start to come to life we’d rather play against them than on them and especially with an underrated team like Kansas City providing their opposition and a good pitcher like Santana on the mound.
BET KANSAS CITY ROYALS (SANTANA) +130 OVER NEW YORK YANKEES (PETTITE)