- first pick in post #385 on the previous page -
KC Royals (Volquez) @ OAK Athletics (Hahn)
Over 7 -117
There've been lots of unders in matchups between As and Royals over the last few seasons, but the As are totally revamped and nearly all of the last games took place at KC. Jesse Hahn started only 1 game against the Royals in his career and it was a shutout (but see trend below) earlier this season. Volquez had 3 starts against the Athletics in his career but the last one was in 2007. So we can't draw any conclusions by batter-vs-pitcher stats.KC Royals (Volquez) @ OAK Athletics (Hahn)
Over 7 -117
Edinson Volquez starts for the Royals. He is 7-4 with a 3.33 ERA. His xFIP and SIERA are both about 1 run higher than his ERA, so he could regress over the next starts and the opponents could score some runs. His road ERA is slightly worse than his home ERA. It's been no big deal for Volquez if he pitches on the road or at home since 2013, in both of the last 2 seasons his home and road numbers were quite similar. Volquez started this season with an ERA of 1.91 over his first 4 starts. But he got a little worse since then and his June ERA is at 4.37. The Royals won 3 of his 4 June-starts, but he failed to go more than 5.1 in 3 of his 4 starts and 2 in a row. The over is 10-5 in Volquez' starts when he wasn't able to pitch at least 6 innings two starts in a row. Additionally, the over is 12-6-2 in Volquez' last 20 road starts and 7-1 in his last 8 games when he was a dog.
Jesse Hahn was acquired from the Padres and has pitched well for the As thusfar. His last two starts were really good. He owns a 3.40 ERA, a 1.15 WHIP and is 5-5. He has bad K-numbers (only 5.63 K/9) and was a little bit lucky, as his BABIP is a little bit low (.267) and his xFIP and SIERA are both about 0.5 runs higher than his ERA. Hahn has been unbelievably good against righties (.181 AVG, 0.94 WHIP), but this was mostly because of luck (.203 BABIP and 3.98 xFIP vs righties). His home ERA (3.10) is better than his road ERA (3.82), but home-BABIP (.250) and home-xFIP (4.09) point towards regression. He has done worse against lefties (.275 AVG, 1.35 WHIP) compared to righties on raw numbers, but his xFIP against lefties (3.88) is nearly the same. He doesn't allow many homeruns and keeps the ball on the ground. Nonetheless I think that his ERA number will increase by about 0.40 to 0.50 over the course of the season and therefore he has to give up some runs. Jesse Hahn gets a slightly above average run support, as the As scored 4.6 runs/game in his start and he (as some other As starters) got sometimes no help from the pen, which is why the As have allowed 4.4 runs/game in his starts. Therefore the over is 9-5 this year in his starts. Furthermore the over is 7-4 in Hahn's last 11 starts as a favorite. And the over is 5-3-1 when Hahn is off to two quality starts in a row.
The Royals had their fair shair of problems against lefties lately until they roughed up the Mariners and Elias. Nonetheless they average only 3.7 runs/game when they face a lefty-starter. But they like to face righties, as they score 4.8 runs/game against righty-starters this season. The over is 9-5 this year when the Royals are on the road and face a righthanded starter and the total is lower than 8.5. The over is also 14-6-3 in the last 23 Royals road games in which they played against a team which had a losing home record. As I said above, the Royals were shutout by Hahn and the As earlier this year. But the over is 5-2-1 in the last 8 Royals games, when they face a starter who shut them out in his previous matchup against them.
Similar to the Royals, the Athletics do much better against righthanded starters (4.9 runs/game) than against lefthanded starters (3.4 runs/game). Therefore the over is 16-9 this season when the Athletics are at home against a righthander. The over is also 8-5 in the last 13 Athletics home games against teams with a winning away record. And last but not least the over is 12-5 in the last 17 home series openers of the Athletics.
I don't have to say much about the bullpen of the Royals, it's very, very good. But every bullpen gives up a run from time to time and although it might not be the case tonight, the Athletics are capable of scoring some off Volquez himself. The As pen has been rather shaky this season, especially a few weeks ago and it's a bullpen I really don't trust.
All told I like the over 7 here. And that's it for today.
