Kansas City Royals vs. Baltimore Orioles Game 1: Picks, Predictions and Odds

Postseason baseball has arrived and two young and talented teams in the Kansas City Royals and Baltimore Ravens will meet in the best-of-three Wild Card round.

Kansas City ended their season in a bit of a slump while the O’s swept their final series of the year against the Twins.

The probable pitchers for the series opener include Cole Ragans and Corbin Burnes, so let’s preview this postseason matchup and get into our expert’s best bets.

Kansas City Royals vs. Baltimore Orioles Game 1 betting picks and predictions

Orioles ML (-150)

Baltimore return to the postseason hoping to fare better than they did in 2023, when they dominated the regular season before being swept by the Rangers in the Divisional Round after earning a bye.

The Orioles have given the nod to Burnes for the opening clash in this Wild Card series and that decision is hardly surprising, given he was one of the league's best pitchers in the regular season.

Burnes finished the season with a 2.92 ERA and a 1.10 WHIP in 32 starts, cementing himself as the new ace in Baltimore. He was even better down the stretch, as he posted a 1.20 ERA and 0.93 WHIP in his final five starts of the season and limited hitters to just a .194 average and .210 xBA in that span.

Kansas City are back in the postseason for the first time since 2015 but their lineup hasn’t been as good in the last few weeks due to the loss of Vinnie Pasquantino. The rumors say that he’s ahead of schedule on his rehab and could return by the Divisional Series.

The Royals will attempt to counter Burnes with their own ace, Cole Ragans, who has been fabulous in his first full season as he posted a 3.14 ERA and 3.27 xERA in 32 starts.

However, his worst start of the season came against the Orioles. He faced Baltimore twice and didn’t make it out of the second inning before allowing seven runs and nine hits in one of the outings.

Under 7 (-125)

Postseason baseball is completely different from the regular season. Tensions are high, the atmosphere is loud, and teams focus more on situational hitting.

You can expect to see more hit-and-runs and bunts called in the next few weeks as teams will do anything to try and get runners into scoring position.

This style of play usually ends with lower-scoring games, especially in the Wild Card round. Both Burnes and Ragans will have very short leashes and the managers won’t hesitate to pull them if they get into trouble.

Each team knows how crucial winning the first game of the Wild Card round is so they will try and avoid allowing runs in bunches. Since both teams had the day off on Monday, the relievers are rested and ready to cover however many innings are needed.

In addition to that, these starting pitchers are some of the best in the business. Burnes ended the season on an incredible run and will face a Royals lineup that finished 30th in batting average, on-base percentage, OPS, and Weighted Runs Created+ (wRC+) in September.

The bottom half of the Kansas City lineup was absolutely terrible down the stretch and that caused a massive drop off in their run production and in turn led to a lot of low-scoring games.

The one thing that they did have was good starting pitching, and Ragans is a perfect example of that.

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Kansas City Royals vs. Baltimore Orioles odds

Kansas City Royals	+125 ML
Baltimore Orioles	-150 ML
Run Line	Orioles -1.5
Total Runs	O/U 7.0

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This article was written by a partner sports writer via Spotlight Sports Group. All odds displayed on this page were correct at the time of writing and are subject to withdrawal or change at any time.