<\/p>\n
Cooper Albers previews Friday\u2019s MLB game between the Kansas City Royals and the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n
American League rivals kick off a three-game series under the Friday night lights, as the New York Yankees host the Kansas City Royals at Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n
The Royals (7\u201312, 4th AL Central) have lost four straight, capped by a three-game sweep by the Tigers in Detroit. The Yankees (10\u20139, 2nd AL East) began their homestand with a thrilling four-game split with the Angels, now looking to rebound from a lopsided defeat in Thursday\u2019s series finale.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Looking at the pitching probables, we\u2019ve got veteran Kansas City right-hander Michael Wacha taking on rising New York righty Cam Schlittler.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
First pitch is set for 7:05 p.m. ET. New York enters as a 1.5-run favorite with -186 moneyline odds on DraftKings Sportsbook<\/strong><\/a>. Kansas City sits as a +153 underdog, with the total set at O\/U eight runs.<\/p>\n Kansas City has gotten off to a rough start in 2026. The club split four games with the woeful White Sox before getting swept by the Tigers without seeing Tarik Skubal.\u00a0<\/p>\n With a rusty Bobby Witt Jr. and an ice-cold Vinnie Pasquantino, the Royals currently rank 25th leaguewide in wRC+ and 26th in wOBA. Underlying metrics fail to paint a prettier picture. The bullpen has also been in complete shambles, sitting second-to-last in ERA \u2014 constantly undone by the long ball.<\/p>\n Still, there\u2019s been one glaring silver lining for Kansas City: its starting rotation. Namely, veteran right-hander Michael Wacha has been an absolute menace to start the season. The former NLCS MVP with the Cardinals boasts a 0.43 ERA with a 0.71 WHIP and 17 strikeouts through his first three starts (21 IP). While his under-the-hood stats \u2014 3.44 xERA and 43.1% hard-hit rate \u2014 indicate some early luck, there\u2019s no denying that he\u2019s been one of baseball\u2019s hottest arms in 2026.<\/p>\n New York quickly dispelled the notion that \u201crunning it back\u201d with MLB\u2019s top offense in 2025 was a bad idea. The Yankees seemingly recaptured that spark during their four-game thriller with the Angels, during which they staged a pair of ninth-inning comeback wins. While consistency remains a concern, particularly with the bottom of the order, the early returns from Aaron Judge, Ben Rice, and all the like are a promising sign of things to come from the Bronx Bombers.<\/p>\n But as the offense began to blossom, New York\u2019s pitching quickly unraveled. Over the four-game slugfest with LA, the Yankees coughed up 28 earned runs on a whopping 13 home runs \u2014 five coming off the bat of Mike Trout.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fortunately, the squad gets to turn the page on a new series by handing the ball to one of MLB\u2019s most promising young talents. Second-year phenom Cam Schlittler \u2014 fresh off a postseason gem against his hometown Red Sox \u2014 has picked up right where he left off in 2026. The right-handed flamethrower enters Friday night with a 2.49 ERA (1.78 xERA), a 0.74 WHIP, and 30 strikeouts through his first three turns (21.2 IP).\u00a0<\/p>\n Quickly dispelling questions around his command, Schlittler has surrendered just one walk so far \u2014 giving him MLB\u2019s top strikeout-to-walk ratio at 30-to-1. The next closest is reigning World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who sits at 7-to-1.<\/p>\n The Royals\u2019 lone playoff appearance since winning the 2015 World Series came to an end in the 2024 ALDS against the Yankees. There, Wacha was bested by Gerrit Cole in a Game 4 pitching duel that culminated in a champagne-soaked visitor\u2019s clubhouse at Kauffman Stadium \u2014 fueling New York\u2019s very own run to the Fall Classic.<\/p>\n One year later, Kansas City went O-fer in six regular-season matchups with New York.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Yankees have had the Royals\u2019 number for quite some time. Expect no different with a heating-up Bombers lineup and a budding superstar on the bump Friday night in the Bronx.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source dknetwork.draftkings.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cooper Albers previews Friday\u2019s MLB game between the Kansas City Royals and the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. American League rivals kick off a three-game series under the Friday night lights, as the New York Yankees host the Kansas City Royals at Yankee Stadium. The Royals (7\u201312, 4th AL Central) have lost four straight, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2378378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2378377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Kansas-City-Royals-vs-New-York-Yankees-prediction-pick-for.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2378377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2378379,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378377\/revisions\/2378379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2378378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2378377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2378377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2378377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Royals vs. Yankees Preview<\/h2>\n
Kansas City Royals<\/strong><\/h3>\n
New York Yankees<\/h3>\n
Royals vs. Yankees Pick, Best Bet<\/h2>\n
Best Bet: New York Yankees -1.5 Runs (+119)<\/a><\/h3>\n