Minnesota Twins vs Kansas City Royals Pick – 4/9/2025

Minnesota Twins vs Kansas City Royals Betting Preview

As the Kansas City Royals prepare to face the Minnesota Twins on April 9, 2025, both teams find themselves in contrasting situations in the American League Central. The Royals, boasting a record of 6-5, have shown some promise early in the season, while the Twins sit at a disappointing 3-8. This matchup marks the third game in their series, with the Twins looking to bounce back after a tough loss yesterday.

Royals' starting pitcher Seth Lugo will take the mound, coming off a solid start this season with a 1-0 record and an impressive ERA of 3.27. While Lugo's advanced-stat Power Ranking places him at #106 among MLB starters, his performance suggests he may have benefited from some good fortune, as indicated by his xFIP of 4.62. Lugo projects to pitch around 5.9 innings, allowing an average of 2.9 earned runs, but his high projected hits allowed (5.9) and walks (1.5) raise concern.

On the other side, Joe Ryan aims to turn around his season after starting at 0-1 with a mediocre 4.50 ERA. His advanced metrics tell a different story, ranking him as the #19 best starting pitcher in MLB, highlighting his potential for better outcomes. Ryan's SIERA of 3.08 suggests he has been unfortunate this year, and he projects to allow only 2.4 earned runs across 5.6 innings.

Offensively, the Royals rank 18th in MLB, while the Twins are struggling mightily at 29th. Kansas City's offense is particularly lacking in power, ranking 25th in home runs, which could play into Ryan's favor as a high-flyball pitcher. With both teams having low implied team totals of 3.75 runs, this game is anticipated to be tightly contested, making it essential for the Royals to capitalize on their slight edge in performance thus far.

Quick Takes Minnesota Twins:

Joe Ryan is an extreme flyball pitcher (42.2% FB% via the leading projection system, THE BAT) and should be helped pitching in the #30 HR venue in the league in this matchup.

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

Ryan Jeffers has primarily hit in the top-half of the batting order this season (71% of the time), but he is projected to hit 7th in the batting order today.

• The lower in the order a player bats, the fewer plate appearances he will get and the fewer opportunities he will get to hit the Over for every market. A player who hits lower in the order than he normally does may provide extra value opportunity since the market may be based on him hitting higher.

Byron Buxton pulls many of his flyballs (41.8% — 100th percentile) and has the misfortune of hitting them in the direction of the game's 4th-deepest LF fences today.

• This player's skill set does not match up particularly well with the park he's in today, which may lead to worse-than-usual performance.

Quick Takes Kansas City Royals:

Despite conventional wisdom, fastballs are generally a pitcher's least effective pitch. Seth Lugo has gone to his non-fastballs 6.2% more often this season (63.7%) than he did last season (57.5%).

• A pitcher who limits has fastball usage will instead heavily use change-ups, curveballs, sliders, etc. These are far more effective pitches at preventing runs and generating strikeouts.

The Minnesota Twins have just 1 same-handed RP in their bullpen, so Kyle Isbel can likely count on never losing the platoon advantage against the 'pen all game.

• Hitters perform worse against pitchers of the same handedness (i.e. righty-vs-righty), and being able to avoid those matchups against the bullpen boosts performance and creates hidden edge.

The Kansas City Royals (20.6 K% (according to the leading projection system, THE BAT X) are forecasted to have the 5th-least strikeout-prone team of hitters on the slate.

• 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 Kansas City Royals have hit the Game Total Under in 58 of their last 99 games (+15.55 Units / 14% ROI)
• The Minnesota Twins have hit the Game Total Over in 53 of their last 94 games (+14.90 Units / 14% ROI)
• Byron Buxton has hit the Total Bases Under in 9 of his last 10 away games (+7.95 Units / 58% ROI)

• Date: April 9, 2025
• Venue: Kauffman Stadium
• Starting Pitchers:
  • Joe Ryan - Twins
  • Seth Lugo - Royals

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