Kansas City Royals at Cleveland Guardians Pick For 6/5/2024

Kansas City Royals vs Cleveland Guardians Details

• Date: June 5, 2024
• Venue: Progressive Field
• Starting Pitchers:
  • Brady Singer - Royals
  • Nick Sandlin - Guardians

Betting Odds

Kansas City Royals vs Cleveland Guardians Win Probabilities

Implied Win % in sports betting represent the probability of an outcome as suggested by the betting odds. It's a way for bettors to gauge the likelihood of an event occurring based on the odds offered by sportsbooks.

Projected Win %, also known as projected win probability, is an estimate by ATS.io to determine the likelihood that a team will win a game or event. This projection is often based on various factors such as team performance, statistics, and historical data.

Kansas City Royals vs Cleveland Guardians Betting Preview

The Cleveland Guardians are set to face off against the Kansas City Royals on June 5, 2024, at Progressive Field. As the home team, the Guardians will aim to continue their impressive season with a record of 40-20. Meanwhile, the Royals are having a great season themselves, boasting a record of 36-26.

The Guardians are projected to start right-handed pitcher Nick Sandlin, who has had an excellent season with a 4-0 win/loss record and an impressive 2.77 ERA. However, his 4.13 xFIP suggests that he may have been lucky and could regress in future performances. On the other side, the Royals are expected to start Brady Singer, another right-handed pitcher. Singer has a 4-2 win/loss record and an impressive 2.63 ERA, but his 3.32 xFIP indicates potential regression as well.

This matchup between the Guardians and the Royals is the second game in their series. In their last game, the Guardians emerged victorious with an 8-5 scoreline. The Guardians had a closing Moneyline price of -130, indicating a 54% implied win probability, while the Royals had a closing Moneyline price of +110 with a 46% implied win probability. The game was expected to be a close one.

The Guardians' offense ranks as the 11th best in MLB this season, with an average team batting average of .272 and an OPS of .870. However, they have struggled in the home run department, ranking last in the league with only 87 home runs. On the other hand, the Royals' offense ranks 9th best in MLB, with a team batting average of .319 and an OPS of .935. They have shown power with 115 home runs, ranking 5th least in the league.

THE BAT X, the leading MLB projection system, projects the Guardians as the favorites with a 65% win probability, while the Royals are considered underdogs with a 35% win probability. The Guardians have a high implied team total of 4.35 runs, while the Royals have an average implied team total of 4.15 runs.

Quick Takes Kansas City Royals:

Given that flyball pitchers struggle the most against groundball hitters, Brady Singer (49% FB% via the leading projection system, THE BAT) will be a bit disadvantaged in this matchup with 2 GB hitters in Cleveland's projected batting order.

• This mostly has to do with the way the hitter's swing plane interacts with the pitch trajectory, and it can create diminished performance across all categories and hidden value few are considering.

Since the start of last season, Nelson Velazquez's 21.1% Barrel%, an advanced standard for measuring power, places him in the 99th percentile among his peers.

• Barrel% measures how often a player hits the ball at the optimal exit velocity and launch angle and is a terrific measure of underlying power.

Salvador Perez pulls a high percentage of his flyballs (35.8% — 91st percentile) and has the good fortune of hitting them towards the game's 3rd-shallowest LF fences in today's matchup.

• This player's skill set matches up particularly well with the park he's in today, which may lead to better-than-usual performance.

Quick Takes Cleveland Guardians:

Given the 1.01 difference between Nick Sandlin's 3.45 ERA and his 4.47 FIP, it's safe to say he's been one of the luckiest pitchers in the league since the start of last season and ought to see worse results in future games.

• Pitchers that are overperforming should be expected to pitch worse going forward, which can create value if the lines are too heavily weighing the lucky, to-date overperformance.

Josh Naylor's quickness has decreased this season. His 25.8 ft/sec Statcast Sprint Speed last season sits at 24.84 ft/sec now.

• Slow players tend to get fewer hits because they can't beat out groundballs, fewer extra base hits, and fewer stolen bases.

The Cleveland Guardians (17.1 K% (according to the leading projection system, THE BAT X) are forecasted to have the least strikeout-heavy team of batters of the day.

• THE BAT X analyzes each player in today's specific lineup to figure out which teams have the least inherent strikeout potential for the opposing pitcher.

Game Trends

• The Cleveland Guardians have hit the Run Line in 34 of their last 60 games (+12.95 Units / 18% ROI)
• The Kansas City Royals have hit the Run Line in 37 of their last 58 games (+13.04 Units / 16% ROI)
• Maikel Garcia has hit the Singles Over in 27 of his last 38 games (+7.45 Units / 12% ROI)

Kansas City Royals vs Cleveland Guardians Prediction

Final Score: Kansas City Royals 4.12 vs Cleveland Guardians 4.98

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