Twins vs. Royals prediction and odds for Friday, July 28 (Sonny Back on track)

This is the time of year when bad teams like the Kansas City Royals try to find ways to get worse. It seems that the entire AL Central is conceding to the Minnesota Twins with the Chicago White Sox and even the Cleveland Guardians making trades to sell off pieces this week.

The 54-40 Twins have a two game lead over Cleveland in the division race and are 25 games clear of the last place, 29-75 Kansas City Royals. 

For Game 1 of this weekend set, the Twins will hand the ball to Sonny Gray to make his 21st start of the year. Gray is 4-4 with a 3.15 ERA and will be opposed by 6-8 Brady Singer who comes in with a 5.55 ERA across his 20 starts. 

The Twins are big road favorites against one of the worst teams in baseball, so let’s get into the odds. 

Twins vs. Royals odds, run line and total

Twins vs. Royals prediction and pick

Brady Singer is somebody who has been floated as a trade chip at the deadline, but a team would need to be really desperate for somebody to pitch to want to add the 26-year-old right-hander.

Singer is in the bottom one percent of all pitchers in hard hit rate yet somehow has only allowed 12 home runs. His FIP is 4.20 and his xERA is 5.15 so that could signal some positive regression coming, but he’s been just awful this year. 

Singer with his 18.8% strikeout rate won’t be able to take advantage of Minnesota’s weakness, its propensity to strike out. The Twins lead baseball in strikeouts this season with 1,074, but they’ve seen Singer before and done real damage.

Back on April 30, Singer only lasted 2.2 innings before getting removed after allowing eight runs on five hits with five strikeouts and three walks. Five strikeouts in 2.2 innings is good, but the rest of that stat line is a disaster. 

Sonny Gray was actually Singer’s counterpart in that one and he went a casual six innings allowing just one run. Gray has had a bit of a rough month, but he rebounded last time out and looks to be back on track.

Minnesota is far and away the best team in the AL Central and it'll win easily today. 

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change