{"id":29599,"date":"2013-08-08T10:49:52","date_gmt":"2013-08-08T15:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=29599"},"modified":"2013-08-08T10:49:52","modified_gmt":"2013-08-08T15:49:52","slug":"mlb-predictions-boston-red-sox-vs-kansas-city-royals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/mlb-predictions-boston-red-sox-vs-kansas-city-royals-29599\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB Predictions: Boston Red Sox vs. Kansas City Royals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Red Sox (70-46) and Kansas City Royals (58-53) will open up a four-game American League series Thursday night at Kauffman Stadium, with the first pitch scheduled for 8:10 p.m. ET<\/p>\n

Boston Red Sox vs. Kansas City Royals\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Boston Red Sox have won four of their last five games<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boston has won four of its last five games, including a 7-5 victory over the Houston Astros as -169 road favorites Wednesday, while going OVER the total for a second consecutive contest.\u00a0 The Red Sox are now 2.5 games ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East standings\u2014picking up their 27th comeback win of the season.\u00a0 \u201cIt just builds on the spirt and character of this team,\u201d commented Red Sox manager John Farrell.\u00a0 Boston is 8-6 on the road with a money line of -100 to -125 this season.<\/p>\n

Red Sox starting pitcher Jon Lester (10-6, 4.52 ERA) didn\u2019t earn a decision in a 7-6 home defeat to the Arizona Diamondbacks last time out, as he allowed six runs and 11 hits over 4.1 frames.\u00a0 The left-hander is 6-6 with a 5.14 ERA in 14 road games, with opposing hitters batting .272 against him.\u00a0 In nine lifetime appearances versus the Royals, Lester has compiled a 6-2 record and 1.64 ERA.<\/p>\n

Kansas City has won six consecutive series, as it picked up a 5-2 come-from-behind victory over the Minnesota Twins as -145 home favorites last night, while going UNDER the betting total for a second consecutive contest.\u00a0 The Royals have won 15 of their last 19 games since the All-Star break.\u00a0 \u201cWhen we left Spring Training, we thought we had a good team,\u201d commented Royals manager Ned Yost.\u00a0 The pitching staff has held opponents to a .156 average with runners in scoring position over the last 15 games.\u00a0 Kansas City is 7-8 as home underdogs of +100 to +125 this season, with the UNDER going 8-5-2 in that situation.<\/p>\n

Royals starting pitcher Bruce Chen (4-0, 2.03 ERA) has led the club to three consecutive victories, but he didn\u2019t earn a decision in a 4-3 road win over the New York Mets last time out, as he allowed one run and four hits over six frames.\u00a0 The left-hander is 2-0 with a 2.87 ERA in 12 home games (one start), issuing seven walks and striking out 26 batters in 31.1 combined innings.\u00a0 In 19 career games versus the Red Sox, Chen has tallied a 4-6 record and 5.59 ERA.<\/p>\n

Sports bettors will likely back the Royals due to their 10-2 record following a win this season.<\/p>\n

Make sure to check out our Major League Baseball picks<\/a> all season long and get the most up-to-date betting odds at Bookmaker<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Boston Red Sox (70-46) and Kansas City Royals (58-53) will open up a four-game American League series Thursday night at Kauffman Stadium, with the first pitch scheduled for 8:10 p.m. ET Boston Red Sox vs. Kansas City Royals\u00a0 Boston has won four of its last five games, including a 7-5 victory over the Houston […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[151,69,7497,138,38,1677,25],"class_list":["post-29599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-american-league","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-bruce-chen","tag-jon-lester","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-kauffman-stadium","tag-mlb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29599"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29601,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29599\/revisions\/29601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}