Kansas City has struggled of late. They’re hitting .169 with a .516 OPS over their last seven days and have only scored eight runs in their last eight games. Michael Wacha has a good but small sample size against Cleveland in his career, 2-0 with a 1.02 ERA. Ben Lively owns 3.75 road ERA, but he’s only allowed two runs, or more, once in his last six starts and is backed by best bullpen in the league, 2.37 ERA. In the first game of a road series for Cleveland, the total has gone under in nine out of 14 games.

The Guardians just took two of three at Baltimore, which is no joke. They're playing great ball, are very athletic, and, after leaning heavily on their top relievers, were able to back off them Wednesday, putting them back in play tonight. KC has lost eight of 12 including half of those games by multiple runs. Outside of Bobby Witt Jr. and Sal Perez, the lineup is leaky. And the bullpen stinks. Michael Wacha has lost three straight starts (6-0, 11-8, 4-1). The Royals are 5-8 when he pitches, all losses by two or more runs. Ben Lively has been a stud for Cleveland. The Guardians are 46-32 on the run-line and 26-17 on the road. Cleveland's run differential is more than twice that of KC's.

This line should be set at O9 (-120), which would require 10 runs for a win condition. Instead, we get this O8.5 (-115) at Caesars, which gets us home in a 5-4 game. Both teams have very low strikeout rates against right-handed pitching, and Kauffman Stadium remains the third-best run-scoring environment in MLB. Kansas City is a much better team at home this season with some of the strongest home/road splits in the league. I'm on the Over in this AL Central matchup.

The Royals have had a really tough time scoring runs recently and have been in just a terrible slump. They finally put up 5 runs yesterday against the Marlins which is the most runs KC has scored in 10 games. The Royals have a lot going for them, first and foremost playing at home in one of the premiere scoring environments, a fully healthy lineup, and facing Guardians starter Ben Lively who has struggled on the road.