A battle of aces goes down in Kansas City on Wednesday when the Royals play host to the Detroit Tigers in a game that might be very impactful in the American League Cy Young Award race.
Detroit Tigers (-122, 7.5) vs Kansas City Royals
The pitcher with the shortest odds to win the American League Cy Young Award at DraftKings Sportsbook currently is Detroit’s Tarik Skubal and he gets the start on Wednesday, entering with a dazzling 1.80 ERA and 1.95 fielding independent with two earned runs or fewer allowed in eight of his nine starts this season.
On the road since the start of the 2023 season, Skubal has a 1.92 ERA with 11.8 strikeouts to 1.9 walks per nine innings compared to a 2.91 ERA with 10.5 strikeouts to one walk per nine innings.
Countering for the Royals is Cole Ragans, who has the fourth-shortest odds on DraftKings for the American League Cy Young Award and has a pretty misleading 3.70 ERA, though, having allowed two earned runs or fewer in seven of his 10 starts this season and has a fielding independent more than a full point lower than his ERA at 2.58.
Both starts have per nine inning ratios that are quite similar with both having allowed 0.5 home runs per nine innings this season with Ragans getting 10.3 strikeouts per nine innings and Skubal 10.8 strikeouts per nine innings.
The bullpen advantage goes to the Tigers with the team entering Tuesday sixth in the league in bullpen ERA while the Royals entered ranked 17th, but the the Royals make up for it with the way that they hit at home.
both starting pitchers are southpaw pitchers and entering Tuesday, the Royals were eighth among MLB teams in batting average against left-handed pitching at .262 while ranking 13th against right-handed pitching at a .241 mark. The Tigers entered Tuesday 22nd in the league with a .227 batting average against left-handed pitchers with just one home run every 39.7 at-bats.
Additionally, the Royals entered Tuesday averaging nearly 5.3 runs per game at home this season, which leads the American League while the Tigers entered 18th in overall runs per game.
In this battle of aces, the Royals’ ability to both hit at home and hit left-handed pitching will be the difference and lead the Royals to victory.
The Play: Royals +102
See which team DraftKings bettors are backing.
