MLB Picks: Royals vs. Blue Jays Prediction
MLB Picks: Royals vs. Blue Jays Prediction
Date: Saturday, July 31
Time: 3:07pm ET
Where: Rogers Centre
Kansas City Royals vs. Toronto Blue Jays Probable Pitchers:
- Royals: Mike Minor (8-8, 5.32 ERA)
- Blue Jays: Alek Manoh (2-1, 2.90 ERA)
Royals vs. Blue Jays Prediction
The Royals traded a bunch of pieces but it looks as though nobody wanted to get in on the Mike Minor sweepstakes. Minor is 8-8 with a 5.32 ERA and no team was willing to grab him for the price the Royals were likely asking.
Minor has actually pitched well in his last two starts against the Brewers and White Sox, giving up just two runs in each game while going six innings. Those qualify as quality starts.
He struck out 12 in those six innings and won both games. However, before those games, Minor had allowed six runs, four runs, five runs and nine runs in his last four starts.
Minor gives every opposition a chance to score runs and win games when he’s on the mound.
In the last 30 days, despite two quality outings, Minor has a 4.80 XFIP along with 7.8 percent walks. He’s also only inducing 41 percent of ground balls and has a hard contact percentage of 45.2 percent.
He’s also struggled against righties way more than lefties as a lefty thrower. Against his last 68 righties, Minor has allowed a .343 wOBA and ISO of .194. He’s also walking 8.8 percent of righties and getting ground balls at just 38.3 percent of the time.
This is significant because the Blue Jays will likely send out a full lineup of righties. This lineup also has an ISO of .193 with a wOBA of .338. They’re only striking out 18 percent of the time and walking 8.4 percent of the time.
The Blue Jays numbers are basically mirror images of what Minor allows per game in his last 30 days. The Blue Jays should be able to score runs in their new “home” ballpark in Rogers Centre in Toronto.
The Blue Jays get their actual fans into the stands while playing for a playoff push. There’s nothing better than that.
Against lefties, George Springer, Vlad Guerrero Jr, Marcus Semien, and Teoscar Hernandez have shown tons of power and are finding ways on base right now. There’s no better lefty to hit against than Minor or struggles to induce ground balls and allows plenty of hard contact.
The Blue Jays lineup has six of their nine hitting hard contact against lefties and as a lineup, the Blue Jays are only hitting 37.2 percent ground balls.
On the other hand, Alek Manoah will take the hill for the Blue Jays. He’s been really good as of late and has faced a high amount of lefties as a righty pitcher. He’s got an XFIP of 2.65 and is striking out 42.2 percent of batters in his last 30 days.
The walks can get high for Monoah but he’s able to get 45 percent ground balls and get a high amount of strikeouts to limit the damage.
But while Manoah profiles very well against the Royals, he hasn’t faced a high amount of righties as of late. That’s what the Royals will bring to the table.
Instead of betting on the Blue Jays to win, just bet them to score runs. It’s a steep price at over 3 at -110 but the Blue Jays profile so well that I like them to score four runs. But at least if they only score three, you’ll get the push and live another day.
MLB Picks - Royals vs. Blue Jays Prediction: Blue Jays F5 TT Over 3 @ -110
Article Author
Jason grew up an avid sports fan. His passion for sports writing grew in high school and he developed a blog that was strictly for New York Sports. From his work, you will quickly realize that he loves looking at games from an analytical and numbers perspective and hopes to provide you with that same perspective in his articles.