Yankees vs. Royals Free MLB Picks for April 30 (Archive)
The New York Yankees will look to hold onto the best record in the American League with another game against the Kansas City Royals tonight. With Gerrit Cole on the mound, will the Yankees have another easy victory? Let’s see what the MLB odds for this matchup tell us!
New York Yankees vs. Kansas City Royals
Saturday, April 30, 2022 – 07:10 PM EDT at Kauffman Stadium
The New York Yankees are rolling with a record of 14-6. Despite all the criticism that the Yankees had during the off-season, New York is now in first place in the AL East and currently has the best record in the AL.
Tonight, the Yankees will take on the Royals for the second straight day. The Yankees used some late-inning magic to dominate the Royals last night. Kansas City is 7-11 on the season but remains in the hunt in a wide-open AL Central.
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Gerrit Cole will take the mound for the Yankees. After three terrible starts, Cole turned things around against the Cleveland Guardians, earning nine strikeouts in 6.1 innings while allowing no runs.
Cole’s back and now the Yankees are in great shape. The Royals have a .127 ISO and a wOBA of .285 with their projected lineup. Only Salvador Perez and Hunter Dozier have been consistent with power against righties and only Andrew Benintendi and Dozier have a high wOBA against righties. This fares well for Cole.
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Meanwhile, the Royals will pitch Carlos Hernandez, who has a 6.38 xFIP through three starts this season. He’s only striking out 7.7% of batters while walking 7.7% of batters this season. Currently, the Yankees are red hot offensively and have a .152 ISO along with a wOBA of .311.
The wOBA of .311 doesn’t sound very good but it’s above-average now with the dead-ball era in play. The Yankees are hitting 24.1% line drives against righties with the projected lineup and just 40.4% ground balls. Against Hernandez, the Yankees are dangerous.
Prediction
I told myself I wouldn’t back Gerrit Cole in April. But on the final day of April, I’m going to back him. Cole looked elite against the Guardians and shouldn’t have any problems trying to be elite against the Royals.
Both of these two offenses have struggled throughout the season and I would even make a case to say that the Royals have been worse. Meanwhile, the Yankees are starting to break out of their early slumps offensively and continue to hit for power against weaker teams.
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The Royals don’t have a great pitching staff and should ultimately give up a bunch of runs this series, just like last night’s disaster. For our MLB picks, let’s take the Yankees -1.5 on the run line against the Royals here.
Hernandez isn’t going to phase the Yankees but Cole will make the Royals blink a bit. At the end of the day, Cole was expected to win the AL Cy Young award this season according to preseason betting odds.
He has time to get back to that level but he’s going to have to pitch extremely well throughout the rest of the season. He’ll take advantage of this start against the Royals.
MLB Pick: Yankees -1.5 (-125) with BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.