Sonny Gray Will Manhandle Royals

Royals vs. Twins, 2:10 ET

The AL Central is an interesting division to me. The teams are all very drastically different. The Guardians are pitching dependent, the Twins seem like they've just pieced together a solid roster, the White Sox are a complete disaster even though on paper they have the best team, the Royals are going nowhere, and the Tigers spent money to go nowhere. Today we get a match between two of the teams in the division.

The Royals are off to a very tough start winning just one of every four games they've played. Their pitching hasn't been good - including today's starter that I think had some talent last season - and their hitting is virtually nonexistent. As a team, they finally cracked 200 hits in their last game, and have only 92 runs for the season. The Twins aren't that much better though as they are only hitting .237 as a team. The biggest difference though is that they have 30+ more runs than the Royals, so the opportunistic hitting is there for Minnesota and not for the Royals. The other issue is the pitching disparity. The Royals as a team have a 5.37 ERA and the Twins are at 3.50.

Brady Singer looks to combat Sonny Gray's great start to the season. (Photo by Ed Zurga/Getty Images)

Today, that pitching matchup and disparity is extremely evident. The Royals send a guy that I liked a lot last year, Brady Singer, to the mound. He's has sandwiched three bad starts with two solid ones. His last outing he allowed just one earned run over six innings. The preivious three, he allowed 18 earned over 16 innings. Twins hitters haven't been fooled by him in the past with a .327 average aginst him and 9 home runs. Sonny Gray is pitching for the Twins and he has been very good to start the year. He's allowed no more than one earned run in any game this year, that includes a start against the Royals where he went five innings and allowed just three hits and four walks but no one crossed the plate.

Today we back the Twins to win this game on the run line. The pitching disparity is just too much for the Royals to overcome. I don't know which version of Singer will show up, but even if they get a good performance out of him, the Royals bullpen has been terrible. I'm going to take the Twins -1.5 at +100.

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