Pitching Should Dominate Feeble Offenses

Pirates vs. Royals, 8:10 ET

I've said this before, but prior to sports betting being legal, or even me being involved with it, I had to wonder who would pay attention to a late August game like this one. We have a matchup between two teams that have been out of the playoff race for months. The Pirates had a decent season for at least half of it, and the Royals never had a chance, but because of sports betting this is a game worth paying attention to.

I just alluded to this, but the Pirates actually had a decent enough season as they were able to stay around .500 until about the middle of June. Eventually, they came crashing down as the pitching just wasn't sustainable and the hitting somewhat fell off a cliff. I do think they have some positive things happening for them though. I think some of their young talent might be able to make a big impact in the next couple of years and they have their Ace waiting in the wings as he climbs through the minors (#1 overall pick this season Paul Skenes). Today though they start a matchup against the Royals one of the few teams that are having a worse season than the Pirates. The Pirates send out Johan Oviedo to the mound. Oviedo has had a solid enough season with a 4.46 ERA, and hasn't really had any drastic splits. He does have a slightly higher road ERA though. He's had one of his better month's in August though as he has gone 28 innings and allowed 12 earned runs. He's allowed one or fewer earned runs over three of his five starts this month.

Andrew McCutchen is the only Pirates hitter with any experience against Zack Greinke. (Photo by Justin Berl/Getty Images)

The Royals have had a very ugly season. Unlike the Pirates, I can't say that their improvement should come in the next couple of years either. They don't have that much pitching or hitting waiting in the wings as far as I can tell. Sure, they have some decent young talent, but is it enough to make a difference? Time will tell, but you aren't going to get a ton of free agents lining up to come to Kansas City so they really need to get their talent homegrown. One guy that was part of their homegrown talent, left and has come back is Zack Greinke. Now in his 20th season, Greinke is a fringe Hall of Famer (my guess is he won't be in it), but this year has not gone very well for him as he is just 1-12 with a 5.34 ERA. We are talking about a team that has only 41 wins, but they have only won five games that Greinke has started. I've brought this up before but he has been much better at home than on the road. In Kansas City, he has a 3.57 home ERA and got his lone win of the year. He came back from injury and turned in four solid innings against the Athletics in his last start. I think he should be okay in this one as well as most of the Pirates hitters haven't faced him before.

Neither of these teams really strikes fear into an opposing starter. That doesn't mean they can't score runs or something, but you have Greinke in a good position, and Oviedo in good form right now. The Royals haven't scored more than five runs in their past five games, and the Pirates have scored four or fewer in four of their past five games. I'll take my chances that this game will once again be an under and play under 9.5.

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