MLB
White Sox @ Royals
Despite leaving Chicago, the wind will be unavoidable for the White Sox tonight. At Kauffman Stadium, it looks like there will be wind upwards of 13.5 miles per hour, coming in from left-center field. That could be good news for these pitchers, though.
Seth Lugo will be one of them on the bump this evening. Lugo came over to the Royals this season after having been with the Padres in 2023. Last year he threw over 146 innings, had a 3.57 ERA and a FIP of 3.83. He had a very productive arm.
And that was the case in his first outing with Kansas City. Against Minnesota, Lugo threw six scoreless innings, allowed two hits, one walk and racked up four strikeouts.
Tonight he faces a White Sox lineup that, so far, has accumulated a wRC+ of 87, a wOBA of .286 and a batting average of .204 vs righties in 119 plate appearances.
The Royals’ lineup has been slightly better - not by much, but enough to warrant a discussion on the difference. In 174 plate appearances vs RHP, they have a wRC+ of 99, a wOBA of .306 and a batting average of .227.
Maybe not the most intimidating numbers, per se, but promising when you see who they are going up against.
And that would be RHP Michael Soroka.
Soroka is coming from the Braves, after putting up 32.1 innings of work, a 6.40 ERA, 6.56 FIP and a 26.5% home run to fly ball ratio in ‘23.
In his first start as a member of the Southsiders he went five innings, surrendered four earned runs on seven hits, walked three batters and struck out none.
I’m not quite sure Soroka is capable of becoming the pitcher he once showed promise of being.
The betting market opened KC as low as -152 and has since shifted them as high as -190, although the more common price is around -175.
If we can reference my write up from yesterday for just a moment - I explained why I wanted to lay -1 on the runline with the Cubbies instead of -1.5. It just so happens that the game did fall on one (9-8) and we pushed our bet. Now, seldom is that going to be the case - and the Cubbies should’ve cleared the RL with ease. They blew leads of 5-0 and 8-2 in that affair.
The point I’m making, though, is that I garner a bit of hesitation for the potential of runs to be scored due to the weather conditions. It's not that I don’t believe in the Royals, but I’m fine with laying a bit more for the flat one, instead of receiving the hook with a slightly better price. And the reason I’m not utilizing the moneyline is because it's simply too high.
Aside from the weather - what’s really the bigger concern is Kansas City’s bullpen woes. Albeit a small sample size, the Royals relief staff has been abysmal. They hold the worst ERA (8.04), have blown two saves and have allowed opponents to hit a major-league-best .354 against them.
Certainly, we should be able to expect some positive regression, especially with the wind being a factor and the weaker offense in the White Sox coming to town. However, I’m still going to implement some caution and lay the -1 at what I think is a reasonable price of -118, which I found at BetRivers in Illinois.
Play: Royals -1 (-118); Risk 1.18 units to win 1.00
NBA
Nuggets @ Clippers
Well, unlike for their last game, the Clippers actually gave people an appropriate heads up on the news that Kawhi Leonard will not be playing tonight. I backed Los Angeles in that spot and after doing so - about an hour later - the news came out that he was going to be absent. There wasn’t any murmur about the possibility of that occurring and it caught a lot of people by surprise.
Nevertheless, as I mentioned - he remains out this evening and that will hurt them once more.
Leonard ranks second in net rating among the Clippers' personnel. Paul George sits at the top with a +13.2 rating and then Leonard comes in at +11.5. Leonard, though, is their best defender by far, as he is contributing -10.5 points per 100 possessions allowed on that side of the ball.
In their last effort, without Leonard, LA fell short at Sacramento 109-95.
It doesn’t get much easier having to host the reigning champions afterwards.
Now, Denver is in a bit of a bind throughout the injury list themselves. Jamal Murray has missed their last six games with right knee inflammation. He did take part in shooting drills before their past two games and is listed as questionable for this evening.
Having Murray would be great for the Nuggets - no doubt about it. But, when you have a team as sound as Denver, the good news is that they will be able to overcome that adversity fairly often.
If we look at the rankings of net rating among Denver, we can see that Murray actually falls to fifth on the list. Nikola Jokic is at the top (+23.4), then Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (+16.2), then Aaron Gordon (+8.9), Michael Porter Jr. comes next (+8.6) and then we finally get to Murray (+3.3).
I’m not saying they are a better team without him, or that those players are guys I’d rather have out on the court - all I’m saying is that the Nuggets can manage without him, especially when the opposing team is missing arguably their best player.
Furthermore, and probably more importantly, we have a difference in seeding implications depending on the result of this game. Though it’s purely speculative, I think it’s safe to assume that these games down the stretch mean a little more to Denver than Los Angeles.
The reason being is that the Nuggets are currently tied for the number one seed with the Timberwolves. The Clippers, however, are sitting fourth and are four-and-a-half games back from moving up to third, and two games ahead of the fifth-seeded Mavericks.
That’s not to say that LA is going to just bend the knee and give up entirely, it’s just pointing out that the motivation may be higher for the away team.
The spread has moved up to -3.5, with juice climbing toward the favorite. We can even see some fours popping up. I'm not too inclined to lay over -3 with Denver due to the uncertainty of several players in their lineup and the fact that I couldn't get the best number on the spread.
The moneyline has not wavered at all, though. With the spread moving toward -4, you would imagine the ML would creep around the -175 mark, but that hasn't been the case. The best price I've seen is -160. I realize that's fairly steep, but given that the spread is climbing and the ML is not - and we'll only need to sweat the outright win - I believe that to be the better route.
Play: Nuggets ML (-160); Risk 1.60 units to win 1.00
Comments