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Kansas City Royals vs. San Diego Padres
The Kansas City Royals take on the San Diego Padres in the second game of an interleague series between these teams. The Padres won Game 1 handily, although the score might not indicate that. The game was close between these teams until the Royals' bullpen came in and surrendered 11 hits in the eighth inning. The Padres ended up having a nine-run inning and took control of the game easily. The Royals' bullpen just completely imploded and that's not totally new to them this season.
The Royals then made a half-hearted comeback in the ninth inning, and they were able to score five runs in the bottom of the inning to make the final score 11-8. So the score definitely doesn't represent the type of game it was, although it does represent how bad the bullpens were. The San Diego Padres are 31-29 now on the season after yesterday's win, but they have weirdly been much better on the road. They are 13-19 at home and 18-10 on the road. They also usually play good teams well with a 15-14 record against teams over .500 this season. That means they are 16-15 against teams under .500, which is obviously a winning record, but they should be beating up on those bad teams, not splitting games with them. Good thing for the Padres, the Royals are a good team this year.
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The Kansas City Royals are currently 35-24 on the season and they are off to their best start since they won the World Series in 2015. They are an incredible 21-9 at home but they are just 7-13 against teams over .500 this season, and a lot of that has to do with their bullpen. They are somehow still four games back of the Guardians for first place in the division even with that record, but they have been very good overall this season. They have mostly been able to rely on their bats to win them games, especially at home. Even the games that they have been losing lately, they have been scoring plenty of runs late to make them close. But like I said, the problem with them is the bullpen. The Royals really don't have anyone they can rely on.
James McArthur is their closer and to be honest, I am not really sure when or why they decided on him to be their closer. He has a 5.32 ERA on the season and he blew the save opportunity against the Padres yesterday. John Schreiber has really been the only one they can rely on but he has really struggled lately, picking up the loss yesterday and blowing a save two games ago. Angel Zerpa has been good for them out of the bullpen, but they don't love pitching him back-to-back days and he pitched yesterday. Nick Anderson has been solid but Chris Stratton and Will Smith have ERAs over 6.0. The Royals' bullpen is a problem while the Padres' bullpen is ranked 10th in the league in ERA.
Alec Marsh is starting for the Royals today and he is 4-2 with a 3.24 ERA this season. He is coming off his worst outing of the season, but he has been pitching really well overall and that was on the road against a division rival. Joe Musgrove is 3-4 with a 5.66 ERA this season, but he has only made two starts since coming off the IL and his first start went three innings while his second start went 5.1 innings. It seems like he is closer to being his old self, but he has been dealing with a ton of injuries lately and this is a tough matchup for him against a potent Royals offense. I want to avoid the bullpens completely with how bad the Royals bullpen has been, so this is my favorite play in this game tonight.
BEST BET
Royals First 5 innings ML -110 vs. Padres (DraftKings)
