There is a wealth of baseball all day long here on this beautiful Tuesday afternoon/evening, but I’m dialing my attention in on an evening tilt from Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City where the Royals play host to Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels.
Let’s tackle this pick and get some real money baseball betting action in early this week!
Angels vs Royals MLB Pick Breakdown
| Odds | Los Angeles Angels | Kansas City Royals |
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline Odds | -133 | +123 |
| Runline Odds | -1.5 (-115) | +1.5 (-135) |
| Over/Under Odds | Over 8.5 (-110) | Under 8.5 (-110) |
Angels
A highly-touted prospect in the Baltimore Orioles’ system, it took a trade to the Los Angeles Angels at the age of 27 for Dylan Bundy to realize his potential, even if it was in a shortened, 11-start season.
The right-hander turned in a sparkling 3.29 ERA/2.95 FIP in his first season with the Halos while his 3.06 xERA simply confirms the excellent work he put forth after struggling across parts of five seasons with the Orioles.
Bundy has essentially picked up where he left off from last season so far here in 2021, posting a 3.75 ERA/2.21 xERA with a 12.00 K/9 against 2.25 BB/9 in his two starts and 12 innings so far this season. He’s faced a couple of excellent offenses in doing so, hurling six innings of one-run ball against the White Sox on Opening Day before tossing another six frames against the Astros his second time out, yielding two runs , both of which came on solo home runs.
The lone blip on Sunday’s radar is the three homers he’s allowed in 12 innings — a 2.25 HR/9 clip — but he’s been real good in his encore so far in the 2021 season.
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The game of baseball carries plenty of volatility and variance on a day-to-day basis, and that has certainly been the case with the Angels’ bats of late.
The Angels scored seven runs in each game from April 4-5, then were held to two on the sixth, and then followed that back up with seven runs in consecutive games once again. After being throttled 15-1 by the Blue Jays in their finale on Sunday, the Angels exploded once again on Monday, this time for 10 runs in a series-opening win over the Royals last night.
Through all the volatility, the Angels’ offense enters this one ranked sixth with a .332 wOBA on the season, although their .301 mark against lefties sits 21st in a small 89 plate-appearance sample so far.
That said, the absence of superstar Anthony Rendon does not help their offense on the whole, but especially against left-handed pitching. A lefty on the mound in Danny Duffy tonight could neutralize the red-hot, lefty-swinging bats of Shohei Ohtani and Jared Walsh, the latter of whom is likely to start this one on the bench.
Much-Needed Relief
The Angels’ bullpen finished the shortened 2020 season ranked 21st with a 4.63 ERA last season, and while their 4.17 FIP suggests they endured some bad luck in doing so, an area of focus this offseason was getting that group in order if they wanted to compete for an AL West crown.
They went out and snagged closer Raisel Iglesias in a trade with the Reds along with veterans such as Tony Watson, Steve Cisehk, Junior Guerra and Alex Claudio, and the results so far have been encouraging.
The Angels rank 13th with a 3.95 bullpen ERA so far this season, and while Iglesias owns a 7.20 ERA, his 2.69 xERA suggests he’ll be fine if he can get his home runs issues — 3.60 HR/9 so far — in check.
Four Angels relievers pitched 3.1 innings of scoreless ball while holding down the fort in last night’s win, so they’ll look to make it two quality outings in a row after a rough showing Sunday against the Jays.
Royals
The Royals will send veteran left-hander Danny Duffy to the bump for this one in what marks his second start to the season. His first one went well as he worked six scoreless innings in a start at Cleveland to open his season, but there’s some scary peripherals.
Duffy walked three in that one, but also allowed a 50% hard-hit rate and a 50% fly-ball rate as well. Obviously, hard-hit fly-balls are going to get you intro trouble sooner or later. Add in the big 35.7% line-drive rate and minuscule 14.3% ground-ball rate and his 5.29 SIERA and 5.03 xFIP from that outing suggests he deserved a far worse fate than the clean 0.00 ERA.
Duffy has long been a fly-ball pitcher with a career 41.9% clip in that department while he’s been above that number in each of the last three seasons. His HR/9 rates between 1.34 and 1.60 in that time come as no surprise while his ERA has been just south of 5.00 in two of the last three seasons.
We’ll see if he can either pitch better or benefit from some extremely fortunate batted-ball luck again this time around.
Pump the Brakes
After the Royals acquired Andrew Benintendi and Carlos Santana in the offseason, many observers suggested this Royals offense could be one of the league’s better groups given the dynamic nature and increased length of the lineup.
However, is it time to bump the brakes on that notion?
One of the more dynamic players in the lineup in Adalberto Mondesi is out until later in the month with an oblique issue, but the team has just struggled to score of late.
After beginning the season by tallying a cool 25 runs across the first two games of their season, the Royals’ offense has averaged just 2.50 runs per game in the ensuing six contests. They managed to split a series with the White Sox despite averaging 2.25 runs per game in that set, a lucky outcome if you’re asking me.
There’s certainly reasons to believe they can get straightened out, but they’ll need far more from the newcomers Benintendi and Santana, both of whom are hitting .188 or worse. Jorge Solder has just one homer and a 69 wRC+ on the season while Hunter Dozier is homerless — and hitless — in 15 trips to the plate as he deals with a thumb issue that’s clearly affected his swing.
The pieces are seemingly there, but they’ve yet to put together, at least over their last six games.
Regressing ‘Pen?
The Royals quietly put forth a top-10 bullpen last season with breakout and resurgent campaigns abound, but things have not gone as smoothly this season.
For instance, a pair of key relievers from last season in Scott Barlow and Jake Newberry were both roughed up for three runs apiece in last night’s loss after young right-hander Brady Singer hurled five innings of one-run ball.
They aren’t struggling mightily by any means as they did have a nice series with Chicago before the Angels arrived, however this group has slipped to the middle of the pack in the early going, posting a 16th-ranked 4.38 ERA so far and also a 20th-ranked 4.58 FIP as their 5.35 BB/9 is the second-worst mark in baseball.
Obviously, it’s early, but this Royals bullpen is going to need improvement if they are to make any noise in an AL Central that is somewhat up for grabs here in the early going.
Angels vs Royals MLB Pick
Both of these clubs began the season hot, but it’s been the Angels who have maintained that start as they continue to look like a serious contender here in the 2021 season, posting an AL-best 7-3 record here in the early going.
Their +1.5 run differential says otherwise, but keep in mind that they endured a -14 run differential in that Sunday game against the Jays alone. Every team has those ones, but that is just about the only game where the team’s pitching and/or hitting didn’t show up.
$100 Could Win You…$175.19
For the Royals, I’m concerned about their ability to score enough runs off of Bundy to win this one. You’re not going to argue with six shutout innings from Duffy, but he deserved far worse in that one and it came against an Indians offense that is not the strength of their team. This Angels offense is the strength of their ball club.
To me, we have the superior starter and offense here with the Angels as I’ll look for them to take another one from the Royals here on the moneyline bet.
James Peralta
As a recent addition to the GamblingSites.org team, James Peralta has been covering everything about casinos, sports, and laws that are specific to online gambling in Canada. James started writing about sports in 2007 during his first year at U of T Mississauga. …
