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3-unit Play Take #968 Kansas City Royals (-110) vs. St. Louis Cardinals (8:10pm ET) The Kansas City Royals host the St. Louis Cardinals in the second of their four-game cross-city series. The Cardinals come in with the best record in baseball at 33-17, but are they that good? There's no question that this is a solid baseball team, but they've been a bit fortunate to carry the best record in the majors in our eyes. While they are third in runs scored in the National League, they are only 13th in home runs and 9th in total bases. They're doing a good job of hitting with runners on base, but once that normalizes you'll see a drop off in runs. They have some aging veterans in that lineup too and it's difficult to see them holding up over the entire season without some drop off. The Cardinals are probably a playoff-bound team, but not the best team in baseball like they are being priced. The Royals haven't been playing very well lately, but they have just the right guy on the mound to get things turned around. Right-hander Ervin Santana is having one of the best seasons of his career in his first season in Kansas City. He has a 3.14 ERA and is walking only 1.3 batters per nine innings, which is 60% less than he walked in 2012. Santana is a momentum type pitcher and right now he has it. The Cardinals send out rookie Tyler Lyons tonight. The 25-year old left-hander wasn't supposed to be in the big leagues this season, but has been called up with the injuries in the rotation. He hasn't been impressive in the minor leagues and I think he'll struggle in just his second big league start. Take Kansas City here.
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