<\/p>\n
Keagan Smith gives you a preview, prediction and pick for today\u2019s game between the Kansas City Royals and St. Louis Cardinals on Friday\u2019s MLB slate.<\/p>\n
On Friday night, the Kansas City Royals look to snap a four-game skid with a fresh start as a new series begins. This one will take place in St. Louis, Missouri as the Cardinals play host for the next three days of action. This is a get-right spot for the visitors, but the home side has been the better team this year and now has the chance to potentially push for the top of the division if they can pad the win column against a struggling opponent.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a betting prediction and pick for Friday\u2019s Royals vs. Cardinals matchup courtesy of MLB odds and lines on DraftKings Sportsbook.<\/p>\n
For a brief moment, it appeared the Royals had found their form and were heading in the right direction. However, they\u2019re still yet to get back to the .500 mark since April 6 when they were 5-5. After dropping four consecutive games to the Tigers and White Sox, they\u2019re now 19-25 and last among the AL Central. The offense doesn\u2019t have terrible numbers by any means with a .708 OPS and .240\/.319\/.389 slash line, but the bats produce only 4.11 runs per game. That\u2019s also despite a respectable .149 ISO and 44 homers, though the latter mark is on the lower end of average. The Royals\u2019 BB\/K ratio of 0.43 is also perfectly fine, falling almost exactly in the middle in BB% (9.5%) and K% (21.8%). The issues for this roster instead revolve almost entirely around the pitching staff, which has a 4.43 ERA and 1.38 WHIP. Kansas City\u2019s arms have struggled with command in particular, giving up a BB% of 11.5% that\u2019s fourth highest in baseball. Despite a K% of 22.5%, the K-BB% sits 20th at 11.0%, so you can see where the problems arise from when coupled with a HR\/9 mark that comes in on the poor end at 1.14 as well.<\/p>\n
The Royals send 34-year-old RHP Michael Wacha to the bump. He\u2019s been excellent across eighth starts with a 4-2 record, a 2.63 ERA and an 0.99 WHIP to his name. Though he\u2019s struck out only 42 hitters in 51.1 IP and is potentially benefitting from some good luck, he\u2019s currently outperforming some of the advanced numbers and has given up just two earned runs on six hits in his two starts this month.<\/p>\n
Despite how low expectations were for St. Louis prior to the season, this team has been shockingly competitive. While just 5-5 over the last 10 outings, the Cardinals are 25-18 overall and just 2.5 games shy of the NL Central lead. The lineup is ninth in run creation with 4.63 runs per game, doing so on a .711 OPS that sits 12th in the Majors. The Cards\u2019 slash line of .240\/.321\/.390 is certainly solid (and quite similar to the Royals\u2019), and they have a .150 ISO with 49 long balls on the campaign. St. Louis also has an 0.42 BB\/K ratio with a 9.1%\/.21.5% split, slightly below-average performance in terms of approach. Meanwhile, the pitching staff has an ERA of 4.29 and WHIP of 1.38, far outperforming an xERA of 5.02 on the year that ranks second-to-last. That provides some belief that regression could loom, and a 9.1% K-BB% sits second-to-last as well behind an MLB-worst K% of just 18.8%.<\/p>\n
Veteran RHP Dustin May takes the mound for St. Louis tonight with a 3-4 record across eight starts. He has an ERA of 4.85, a 1.43 WHIP and 32 strikeouts across 42.2 IP. While he limits walks and still has good fastball velocity, he\u2019s in the eighth percentile in hard-hit rate and 13th percentile in xBA.<\/p>\n
DraftKings Sportsbook lists the Cardinals as slight -112 Moneyline favorites at home tonight. The Royals come in at -108 odds to win outright. The run total also sits at 8.5 combined runs between these sides.<\/p>\n
These teams are eerily similar in some aspects of the game. You have two close slash lines as a group and two of the MLB\u2019s worst bullpens as well \u2014 Kansas City\u2019s has a 4.64 ERA and 1.45 WHIP while St. Louis\u2019 numbers come in at a 4.70 ERA and 1.43 WHIP. I don\u2019t totally love this pick since the Royals have looked so average lately and are in the midst of a skid while scoring just 3.10 runs per game on the road this year overall, but I also don\u2019t love May\u2019s pitching. I think KC can get the better of him while the Cardinals\u2019 batters could struggle with Wacha, so I like getting the Royals in the first five innings today. All bets are off after that though, and I wouldn\u2019t feel shocked in the slightest if the Redbirds win in the late stages.<\/em><\/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":" Keagan Smith gives you a preview, prediction and pick for today\u2019s game between the Kansas City Royals and St. Louis Cardinals on Friday\u2019s MLB slate. On Friday night, the Kansas City Royals look to snap a four-game skid with a fresh start as a new series begins. This one will take place in St. Louis, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2418812,"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-2418811","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\/05\/Kansas-City-Royals-vs-St-Louis-Cardinals-prediction-pick-for.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418811","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=2418811"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2418813,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418811\/revisions\/2418813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2418812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2418811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2418811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2418811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}