White-Hot Chicago White Sox vs. Greinke's Royals

Chicago White Sox vs. Kansas City Royals 8:10 ET

The white-hot Chicago White Sox (41-38, +$395) continued their winning ways in Thursday night’s MLB betting battle with the Kansas City Royals (33-45, $-1210) behind a stellar pitching performance from Mark Buehrle. The lefty picked up his 20th career victory against the Royals franchise by tossing 8.1 innings of one-run ball to secure his eighth victory of the season. The victory was the Palehose sixth in a row (+$694), and they’ve now rattled off victories in 14 of their L/18 overall road games (+$1434). Manager Ozzie Guillen’s ballclub now stands 21-18 as a visitor and have put close to $900 of baseball betting profit in their backers pockets. The victory allowed them to inch a little closer to the Detroit Tigers in the AL Central Division race now just 2.5-games back. The 2009 sports betting season got off to a fine start for Manager Trey Hillman’s Royals, but injuries and a lack of offense has really hampered his club of late. After struggling to a 10-16 record in June, KC has lost each of its July contests to drop to eight games under .500 and stand only in front of the Cleveland Indians for the most $$$ lost in the American League (-$1210). Since dropping four of their first five with the Royals this season, the White Sox have now won four in a row to take a 5-4 lead in the 2009 season series.

Zach Greinke and the host Royals surprisingly sit as -145 favorites over the host White Sox and John Danks with the game ‘total’ set at 7.5 under -125 per the current BetUS MLB odds.

After struggling throughout the month of May to the tune of a 2-2 mark with a 6.32 ERA, lefty John Danks was spectacular throughout the month of June going 2-3 with a 2.91 ERA. He’s coming off another dominating effort against the Chicago Cubs where he tossed seven innings of shutout ball en route to securing his sixth win of the season. Over his L/3 starts, Danks has surrendered just 12 hits and four ER’s while striking out 19 and walking six through 21 total innings of work. Chicago has won each of his L/3 road starts, and he’s 1-0 with a 3.25 ERA and 1.28 WHIP in six career starts against the Royals.

Zach Greinke won his 10th game of the season his last time out against Pittsburgh where he tossed 6 1/3rd innings of two-run ball in the Royals 3-2 road victory. Since going through a rough patch that spanned four games from the end of May to mid June, the righty has been his dominant self going 2-0 while allowing just three earned runs with a K/BB ratio of 8/0 through 14.1 total innings of work. After shutting the White Sox out in each of his first two starts against Chicago this year, he got roughed up for four runs (three earned) and eight hits the third time around. He’s dominated the White Sox line-up this season striking out 24 batters in the 22 innings he’s thrown at them.

The no brainer here would be to blindly play the visitors due to the way they’ve been playing of late, but I think the Royals are medium sized favorites for a reason. Instead, bank on both of tonight’s starters to hold true to form and dominate each team’s offense. Chicago’s offense looked to be gassed against Bruce Chen who was making just his second start in two-plus years. What’s an “on” Greinke gonna do to it? Offense is at a premium in this rivalry (9-3 to the ‘Under’ L/12), so bank on another low scorer…

Rose’s Recommendation: 3* CWS/KCR Under 7.5 -125 (Danks/Greinke)

(Rating Scale: 1* - 5*)