Here's one I'm gonna play tonight. Feel free to share your thoughts and BOL everyone! I'm currently 41-34-3 on my forum posted MLB plays this season.
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Texas Rangers @ Kansas City Royals
My Pick: Texas Rangers/Kansas City Royals Under 9 (-110) - W
Cole Hamels will be taking the mound for Texas and he owns a 3.69 ERA overall (2.40 on the road). He's allowed 2 or fewer ER in nine of his fourteen appearances this year and has been especially solid during road games. Hamels has now had four straight quality starts on the road allowing just 1, 2, 0, 1, 4, 2, and 1 ER in each away outing. Today he'll face a Kansas City team that did pretty well against him when they played in Texas back in May (8 HA/5 ER), but has struggled against the left-hander in previous games played at Kauffman Stadium. In fact, of the 2 career visits Hamels has made to Kauffman Stadium, the Royals have never surpassed 4 runs. When playing there last year Hamels finished with a 0.00 ERA allowing just 4 HA and 0 ER through 7.2 innings. The year before that it was a 0.00 ERA allowing just 5 HA and 1 ER through 5.1 innings. Needless to say, Hamels has always done well at Kauffman Stadium and today shouldn't be much different. The Royals have not been scoring much lately. The team has failed to surpass 4 runs in any of their last eleven games (six of those were at home) and they only even reached 4 once (their last game which was on the road). At home this year they own a team batting average of .240 (19th in the league) with an OBP of .309 (23rd in the league) and an SLG of .365 (28th in the league). Over the past week their numbers have been even worse with a team batting average of .163 (Last in the league), an OBP of .239 (Last in the league) and an SLG of .244 (Last in the league). Hamels comes in throwing a .365 wOBA against left-handed batters and .296 wOBA against right-handed batters on the road. Projected starters have just 1 home run in 114 plate appearances and collectively own a .295 wOBA and .097 ISO against him. To me this looks like a great opportunity for Hammels to get revenge. He took the loss in their previous meetup and now gets them on the road where he excels (and Kansas City struggles). When looking at run support for Jason Hammel this year it hasn't been too great. The Royals have failed to score more than 5 runs in any of his last six games and have only even reached 5 once at home this season. An average Rangers bullpen comes in with a 3.81 ERA (15th in the league) and shouldn't struggle too much. It seems like the Royals reaching 4 or 5 would be a big stretch..
On the other side it'll be Jason Hammel pitching for Kansas City and he owns a 4.89 ERA overall (4.26 at home). He's coming off a solid home game against the Reds where he went six shutout frames before giving up two runs in the seventh. Hammel has allowed 3 ER or less in nine of his fourteen appearances this year and 2, 3, 5, 3, 3, and 2 ER in each of his home games. He did well in his road matchup against Texas last month, fanning his highest strikeout numbers of the year (4 HA/10 Ks/0 ER) while playing 5.1 innings. Today he'll get the Rangers at home which somewhat favors him when looking at their averages on the road. Texas comes into this game owning a team batting average of .225 (27th in the league) with an OBP of .297 (27th in the league) and an OBP of .367 (26th in the league) in away games this season - all numbers which improve quite a bit when they play at home. Projected starters for the Rangers have just 3 home runs off Hammel in 107 plate appearances and collectively own a .285 wOBA and .155 ISO against him. In his 2 career home matchups against them (one with the Royals and one with the Cubs) he's 0-2 Over/Under and the Rangers have never surpassed 5 runs. Texas has been hitting the ball better lately, scoring 5+ runs in five of their last six games. However, four of those were also at home where we know the team hits better. Specifically on the road the Rangers have actually only reached 5 runs once in their last six. When Hammel played them at home last year he finished allowing 4 HA and 3 ER through 5.2 innings and went on to lose that game 5-3. He'll come into this one throwing an average .318 wOBA versus left-handed batters and .339 wOBA versus right-handed batters at home. Over the past 15 times we've seen the Rangers travel to play a game in Kauffman Stadium they've only surpassed 5 runs once, and only reached 5 runs once as well. When looking at run support for Cole Hamels we can see Texas has failed to surpass 3 runs in any of his last four starts. Heck, they've only surpassed 5 runs in one of his last 20 and that goes all the way back to last season. He's 0-6-1 Over/Under his last seven. Kansas City does have the worst bullpen in the league - owning a 5.71 ERA. However, with how Texas hits on the road (and when considering their history in Kansas City), I think they would likely have an absolute ceiling of like 5 in this game..
These two teams are 1-14-1 Over/Under their previous sixteen matchups in Kauffman Stadium and Kansas City has never surpassed 4 runs in that time. Even the Rangers have only managed to surpass 5 just once. Seeing how Kansas City and Texas have been hitting this year, I just can't really see tonight being an Over with a high number like 9 total.