Kansas City is a Royal First-Half Bet Against Houston
Houston hosts Kansas City for the second game of a three-game set tonight at 7:15 ET on Fox. Can the Royals pull off a second consecutive upset against heavily chalked Houston?
Kansas City Royals (23-52) at Houston Astros (50-27)
MLB Pick: Kansas City 1H RL
Last night, Houston suffered one of the biggest upsets this season, losing as over -300 favorites. This upset brings a wake-up call to bettors because bettors tend to be biased towards the home team. Even though home teams are winning 51.60% of the time and only 10 teams have losing records at home, 20 teams are yielding negative units at home because oddsmakers are already aware of this bias. They therefore make bettors lay extra chalk in order to back the home team so that this bias ends up costing them. Houston is one of those teams that are costing bettors, yielding -10.3 units at home. So in order to recommend laying all this chalk on Houston for an MLB Pick, i’d have to really, really like them. But there’s no value in doing so.
Ian Kennedy (1-7, 5.31 ERA) is improving from last year. His FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck) is down .91 from last season. He is striking out more batters and allowing fewer homers. Kennedy isn’t doing anything significantly different in terms of pitch usage, location or velocity. But he is creating more propitious situations for himself. His opposing slugging percentage is .488 overall, which drops to .320 when he’s ahead in the count and skyrockets to .732 when he’s behind in the count. This last statistic is .224 higher than league average. So staying ahead is really important for Kennedy. He’s doing better this season because he has improved his first-pitch strike percentage by five from last season. In six games, Kennedy has thrown a first-pitch strike with at least 68% frequency. In all of those games, he didn’t allow a homer. In all besides one, he allowed zero or one run. In the other game, he allowed two runs.
Kennedy therefore tends to do well against lineups that struggle at the start of counts. Half of his six games with 68 or better first-pitch strike percentage came against lineups that rank in the top 10 in percentage of first-pitch strikes (either taken, foul, or out) from right-handed pitchers. The Astros rank 28th in slugging against the first pitch from righties at home and 22nd against the first-pitch fastball and cutter, which are Kennedy’s two favorite first-pitch selections, from righties at home.
History supports Kennedy. In 73 at-bats, Houston hitters are batting only .205 against Kennedy. George Springer and Carlos Correa are a combined 1-for-15 against him. Houston’s ballpark is Kennedy’s favorite. In his career, he is 3-0 with a 0.92 ERA there. The Astros are also in a bad betting spot today. They are 1-3 this season after a shutout. In those games, they achieved most of their runs after the fifth inning.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="de"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It's go time <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RaisedRoyal?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc^tfw">#RaisedRoyal</a> <a href="https://t.co/S7hCWwPSW1">pic.twitter.com/S7hCWwPSW1</a></p>— Kansas City Royals (@Royals) <a href=" ">23. Juni 2018</a></blockquote>
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Lance McCullers (8-3, 3.77 ERA) allowed only two runs in six innings on June 17 against Kansas City. McCullers is unique partly because of his reliance on the sinker-curveball combo and especially because of how strong the velocity and how little the vertical movement of his curveball is.
The sooner that hitters see him again, the better. McCullers shut out Oakland on April 28, but 10 days later he yielded a 3.60 ERA. On May 20, he achieved a one-hit gem against Cleveland. On the 26th, Cleveland achieved seven runs in 4.1 innings. Kansas City gets a rematch with McCullers after less than a week.
Houston is 3-5 in its last eight home games, averaging just over three runs during that stretch, whereas they average two more per game on the season. They rank 18th in runs at home per game behind teams like San Diego and San Francisco, which play in notoriously pitcher-friendly parks and rank in the bottom 10 in runs per game.
Houston hosts Kansas City for the second game of a three-game set tonight at 7:15 ET on Fox. Can the Royals pull off a second consecutive upset against heavily chalked Houston?
Kansas City Royals (23-52) at Houston Astros (50-27)
MLB Pick: Kansas City 1H RL
Last night, Houston suffered one of the biggest upsets this season, losing as over -300 favorites. This upset brings a wake-up call to bettors because bettors tend to be biased towards the home team. Even though home teams are winning 51.60% of the time and only 10 teams have losing records at home, 20 teams are yielding negative units at home because oddsmakers are already aware of this bias. They therefore make bettors lay extra chalk in order to back the home team so that this bias ends up costing them. Houston is one of those teams that are costing bettors, yielding -10.3 units at home. So in order to recommend laying all this chalk on Houston for an MLB Pick, i’d have to really, really like them. But there’s no value in doing so.
Ian Kennedy (1-7, 5.31 ERA) is improving from last year. His FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck) is down .91 from last season. He is striking out more batters and allowing fewer homers. Kennedy isn’t doing anything significantly different in terms of pitch usage, location or velocity. But he is creating more propitious situations for himself. His opposing slugging percentage is .488 overall, which drops to .320 when he’s ahead in the count and skyrockets to .732 when he’s behind in the count. This last statistic is .224 higher than league average. So staying ahead is really important for Kennedy. He’s doing better this season because he has improved his first-pitch strike percentage by five from last season. In six games, Kennedy has thrown a first-pitch strike with at least 68% frequency. In all of those games, he didn’t allow a homer. In all besides one, he allowed zero or one run. In the other game, he allowed two runs.
Kennedy therefore tends to do well against lineups that struggle at the start of counts. Half of his six games with 68 or better first-pitch strike percentage came against lineups that rank in the top 10 in percentage of first-pitch strikes (either taken, foul, or out) from right-handed pitchers. The Astros rank 28th in slugging against the first pitch from righties at home and 22nd against the first-pitch fastball and cutter, which are Kennedy’s two favorite first-pitch selections, from righties at home.
History supports Kennedy. In 73 at-bats, Houston hitters are batting only .205 against Kennedy. George Springer and Carlos Correa are a combined 1-for-15 against him. Houston’s ballpark is Kennedy’s favorite. In his career, he is 3-0 with a 0.92 ERA there. The Astros are also in a bad betting spot today. They are 1-3 this season after a shutout. In those games, they achieved most of their runs after the fifth inning.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="de"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It's go time <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RaisedRoyal?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc^tfw">#RaisedRoyal</a> <a href="https://t.co/S7hCWwPSW1">pic.twitter.com/S7hCWwPSW1</a></p>— Kansas City Royals (@Royals) <a href=" ">23. Juni 2018</a></blockquote>
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Lance McCullers (8-3, 3.77 ERA) allowed only two runs in six innings on June 17 against Kansas City. McCullers is unique partly because of his reliance on the sinker-curveball combo and especially because of how strong the velocity and how little the vertical movement of his curveball is.
The sooner that hitters see him again, the better. McCullers shut out Oakland on April 28, but 10 days later he yielded a 3.60 ERA. On May 20, he achieved a one-hit gem against Cleveland. On the 26th, Cleveland achieved seven runs in 4.1 innings. Kansas City gets a rematch with McCullers after less than a week.
Houston is 3-5 in its last eight home games, averaging just over three runs during that stretch, whereas they average two more per game on the season. They rank 18th in runs at home per game behind teams like San Diego and San Francisco, which play in notoriously pitcher-friendly parks and rank in the bottom 10 in runs per game.
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