Kansas City Royals vs. Cleveland Indians – 9/1/20 MLB Pick, Odds, and Prediction

The Cleveland Indians and the Kansas City Royals meet in game two of their AL Central division set from Kauffman Stadium on Tuesday.

The Cleveland Indians will look to bounce back after a 2-1 loss to KC in the opener on Monday. Franmil Reyes went 2 for 4 with a pair of doubles and the Tribe’s lone RBI while Cesar Hernandez, Jose Ramirez, Francisco Lindor and Carlos Santana each had a base hit to finish off the Indians’ offense as a team in the losing effort. Shane Biebet threw six shutout innings, allowing just one hit while striking out nine, not factoring in the decision. James Karinchak took the loss to fall to 0-2 in relief this season. Zach Plesac will start here and is 1-1 with a 1.29 ERA and 24 strikeouts this season. In his career, Plesac is 3-0 with a 2.11 ERA and 16 strikeouts against Kansas City.

The Kansas City Royals will try to build off of their win over the Indians from Monday. Maikel Franco went 2 for 4 with an RBI while Bubba Starling had an RBI of his own and Alex Gordon chipped in a base hit as the Royals cranked out just four hits as a team in the winning effort on Monday. Brad Keller allowed one run on three hits while striking out four, not factoring in the decision. Scott Barlow got the win in relief to improve to 2-1 while Greg Holland closed things out for his 2nd save of the season. Matt Harvey will start here and is 0-1 with an 11.12 ERA and 6 strikeouts this season. This will be Harvey’s second career start against Cleveland.

Cleveland is 10-2 in their last 12 road games and 51-24 in their last 75 games within the division while the under is 4-0 in their last 4 games following a loss. Kansas City is 18-47 in their last 65 games following a win and 2-6 in their last 8 games overall while the under is 6-0-1 in their last 7 games as a road underdog. Cleveland is 13-5 in the last 18 meetings between these two teams and 6-2 in the last 8 meetings in Kansas City.

Plesac hasn’t pitched in about three weeks since violating team protocol with former teammate Mike Clevinger, so there could be some rust here and well on the other side, Matt Harvey’s been known to be a walking over and put his team behind 4-0 before they even take the field. I’m going to side with the over here as I think the bats wake up on Tuesday, but my stronger play is on who wins this game and I have that as a premium play that you can find here.