One Reason Royals And Marlins Game Is Worth Paying Attention Today

Royals vs. Marlins, 6:40 ET

This seems like an obvious statement coming from a guy that spends a lot of time writing and talking about sports betting, but if I was a commissioner of a sport, I would fully embrace the idea of sports betting. Kansas City has a fair amount of fans out there, the Marlins probably don't. Neither team is likely to go anywhere this year, so why should we care about this game? Sports betting, that's why. The only reason to pay attention to a June series between the Royals and Marlins is because we want to win a unit on the game.

I'd be lying to you if I told you I thought the Marlins would be good this year. Their lineup is filled with no name guys and some journeymen. That typically is not a good combination for a baseball team. Sure, they have the reigning Cy Young winner, but even he isn't having a fantastic season. The biggest surprise for the Marlins is how well they are hitting the ball. The only thing is they aren't scoring all that many runs right now. They have a batting average that is almost 30 points higher than the Royals, but have scored just four more runs on the season. The Royals are what you'd expect. They are a very bad team with just 18 wins on the season. I'd expect them to move any piece they can around the deadline in hopes of getting some assets as they embark on another rebuild to relevancy. Neither team is overly consistent this season, but it seems like the Royals are doing slightly more with their hits than the Marlins are this year.

The matchup today is between Carlos Hernandez and Braxton Garrett. Hernandez comes in with a 4.76 ERA and is being used as an opener for the game. He is very interesting to me because he has a terrible home ERA (7.43) but on the road, where he is today, he is at just 2.40. Sometimes splits can be a bit misleading, for example, he has a 1.93 ERA in May, and a 108.00 ERA in June. However, the home road split looks good because he actually has more road innings pitched than home. Sometimes that preparation or something just works better in different spots for pitchers. On the other side, Garrett has been pretty solid for the fish this season. He has an overall ERA of 4.22 which is decent enough. He also has bad home/road splits with his home ERA almost four full runs higher than his road ERA. This one is a bit misleading too, because 11 of the 16 runs he has allowed at home came in one game. He's actually been quite good at home outside of that one game against Atlanta. And, in case you need it, the Royals are not the Braves.

I'm taking the under in this game. I don't really have confidence in either team from a hitting perspective. The pitching seems to be in a decent enough spot that both pitchers should be comfortable. Sure, it is a bullpen game for the Royals, but that actually might work against the Marlins. I don't normally want to trust the KC 'pen, but I'll do it here. Back the under 8.5 for the game.

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