The Cleveland Indians are one of the hottest teams in baseball right now, and they look to continue that trend this weekend. The Indians will play host to the Kansas City Royals in a three-game series that should be very one-sided. Kansas City won’t just roll over and let the Indians beat them, but the Royals are going through another miserable season.
Cleveland has won five straight games and is coming off of a four-game sweep over the Detroit Tigers. The Indians improved their record to 55-40 and sit just four games out of first place in the AL Central. Kansas City is also coming into this series red-hot after just completing a four-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox. The Royals are still 36-62 on the season and will be sellers at the trade deadline. The Cleveland Indians are -240 over the Royals in the series opener.
Montgomery Makes Debut For Royals
The Kansas City Royals will send Mike Montgomery to the mound on Friday night. The Royals acquired Montgomery from the Chicago Cubs earlier in the week and will give him the chance to earn a spot in the rotation. The veteran lefty has a career record of just 21-27 but sports a very respectable 3.72 earned run average. Montgomery will be facing a tough lineup in this game.
Even though the Kansas City Royals haven’t been a good team this season, they do have some very talented bats in their lineup. Jorge Soler is leading the team with 26 home runs and 69 runs batted in and is an extremely talented player when healthy. Second baseman Whit Merrifield is hitting .312 on the season and has been involved in plenty of trade rumors of late. The Royals will score some runs if the Indians aren’t careful.
Indians Finally Starting to Score
Cleveland struggled to find consistent offense for much of the early part of the season, but that hasn’t been the case of late. The Indians are scoring close to 6.5 runs per game during this recent win streak, and some of their big bats are starting to wake up. All-Star Carlos Santana has been great all season long for the Tribe, leading the team with 21 home runs, 54 runs batted in, and a .288 batting average. Francisco Lindor has been hot of late, and his batting average has climbed to .285. The Indians should score runs in bunches this weekend.
Young Shane Bieber will take the ball for Cleveland in this game, and that should make Indians fans happy. Bieber is 8-3 with a 3.49 earned run average this season and was the MVP of the 2019 MLB All-Star Game. The hard-throwing right-hander hasn’t lost a start in close to a month but has struggled against the Royals in his career. Cleveland just needs a quality start from their All-Star.
Indians Win Series Opener
Both teams come into this game playing great baseball, but that’s going to end for the Royals. Kansas City has made a nice run of late, but the Royals still aren’t very good. Cleveland is trying to play its way into the playoffs, and they are going to get it done. Bet the Cleveland Indians -240 over the Kansas City Royals.
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