Originally posted on 06/16/2014:

"Don't mess with a winning streak"
-Crash Davis

Biggest series of the year so far in the majors.
KC charges to 1.5 games back of division leader Tigers.

Three game set begins tonight in Detroit, Royals face Verlander tonight, and Mad Max on Tuesday.
Win both, they take the division lead and makes a lot of people take notice.
KC counters with Vargas tonight and pits Ace Ventura agains Max tommorrow.


Reasons to back KC

1) KC is the hottest team in the majors, sweeping Cleveland at home and the White Sox on the road, currently riding a seven game win streak.

2) I dont know who he is nowadays, but Verlander is not Verlander.
But almost every power pitcher does not have a shelf life of nine years, and Justin is in his ninth year, and like Mussina, Maddux and all the other great pitchers of days gone by, needs to re-invent himself.

Spin it any way you want 1.51 for a WH/IP and 4.61 for an ERA are just terrible, awful numbers.
Even his strikeouts are way down, and he's facing a line up that may be underachieving in the power numbers, are one of the best contact teams in the majors and lead the majors in fewest times struck out (387) and it's not evem close, every other team has struck out over 400 times.

3) Butler flat out owns Verlander Billy is 32 for 74 lifetime versus JV that's .432, OBA of .492
That's half the time Butler faces Verlander, he gets on base. He also has two taters off of Verlander too.

Sal Perez is 12 for 27 .444
Alex Gordon has taken him deep twice too.

The middle of the order has done and can do damage against JV

4) KC Jason Vargas has emerged as one of the better LH starting pitchers in the American League.
Going into tonight he's 6-2, with a tidy 1.21 WH/IP and a very nice 3.30 ERA.

67 strike outs is good 23 walks in almost 100 innings is betterm that's about 2 a game, and you can't be walking Tiger batters.

Must keep Kinsler (who is hot right now) and has hit Vargas in the past off the bases and Miggy in the yard.
If successful, he wins this game. Rest of the Tiger line up he's fine with history shows.


5) KC is over .500 on the road. (18-16)
Tigers are 13th out of 15 American League teams versus lefties.
They have only scored 62 runs off of southpaws.

I hate to drop the 'v' word here, but there is a lot of value in KC tonight, even if they don't cash it's still the correct wager here.

I'm getting +133 (as of 9:30am) on a white hot team, against a declining power pitcher, with a solid lefty whose team is better than .500 on the road, against a team that struggles against LHP this season.

Buyer beware.

Even though I like the Royals tonight, and will back them at +133, 3 gets you 4 and I like those numbers, it's still Verlander, no matter how much he slipped, and the Tiger line up can rake with V-Mart, and Kinsler, and Miggy.....
My point being, it's not automatic, but I like the +133 here