The Kansas City Royals and the Los Angeles Angels meet in MLB action from Angel Stadium on Monday night.
The Kansas City Royals will look to bounce back from a 2-1 loss at the hands of the Minnesota Twins in their series finale on Sunday. Andrew Benintendi accounted for the lone RBI for the Royals in the losing effort while Whit Merrifield went 2 for 4 with a triple and a double. Kelvin Gutierrez, Jarrod Dyson and Cam Gallagher each had a base hit as well to finish off Kansas City’s offense as the Royals had just six hits as a team in the losing effort. Brady Singer took the loss, falling to 3-5 on the year after allowing two runs on eight hits while striking out seven over 5.2 innings of work. Jackson Kowar will make his major league debut here and was 5-0 with a 0.85 ERA and 41 strikeouts for triple-A Omaha this season.
The Los Angeles Angels will try to bounce back from a 9-5 loss at the hands of the Seattle Mariners in their last game. Justin Upton led the way, going 2 for 4 with a solo home run, a double and two total RBIs while Anthony Rendon and Jared Walsh each had a double and an RBI with Rendon going 2 for 5 at the dish in the win. Juan Lagares added an RBI as well to finish off the scoring for the Angels in the losing effort while David Fletcher added a pair of hits with a double as well to round out L.A.’s offense as a team in the defeat. Patrick Sandoval took the loss, falling to 0-2 on the year after allowing three runs on five hits while striking out ten over six innings of work. Dylan Bundy will start here and is 0-6 with a 6.49 ERA and 53 strikeouts this season. In his career, Bundy is 1-2 with a 4.20 ERA and 41 strikeouts against Kansas City.
Kansas City is 17-36 in their last 53 Monday games and 16-44 in their last 60 games against the AL West while the over is 4-1 in their last 5 series-opening games. Los Angeles is 1-4 in their last 5 series-opening games and 1-4 in their last 5 home games against a team with a winning record while the over is 5-1 in their last 6 games against the AL Central. The under is 4-1-1 in the last 6 meetings between these two teams and 4-0-1 in the last 5 meetings between the two in Los Angeles.
It’s hard to know what to expect from Kowar, but the dude was shredding it up in AAA and he’s one of the birhgter prospects in KC’s system. On the other hand, this has been a terrible season for Bundy and it has to go up somewhere doesn’t it? I’ll side with the under here.