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The Kansas City Royals and Oakland Athletics will play Game 3 of their four-game series at 4:07 p.m. ET. Jackson Kowar will be on the mound for the Royals, while James Kaprielian will start for the Athletics. We’ll go over some ideal picks on DraftKings Sportsbook centered around the game here.
Royals vs. Athletics, 4:07 p.m. ET, ESPN+
Moneyline pick: Athletics -167
The Royals and Athletics have split the first two games of their four-gane set. After losing the series opener on Thursday night, A’s bounced back with a 4-3 win Friday night. With the victory, they’ve now pushed their home record to 20-18 and have won 3 out of their last 5 games.
Oakland will look to keep the momentum going with rookie pitcher James Kaprielian on the mound. The rookie has held his throughout the first half of the season with a 2-1 record and 3.08 ERA in five starts. Furthermore, Kaprielian has only allowed two runs or less in four out of his five starts, which is an excellent way to start your rookie season.
The 27-year-old has only made one start this season, which was against the Seattle Mariners on April 26. He went a season-high 7.0 IP and only allowed 2 hits, 2 walks, but still managed 4 strikeouts. He should be able to out-duel fellow Royals rookie Kowar, who is only making his second-ever big league start. Kowar got roughed up as he couldn’t locate his pitches, which made it easy target practice for the Los Angeles Angels. Oakland will now have the tough task of facing a pitcher for the first time that they haven't seen. But they should be able to pull out the win and look for the series victory on Sunday.
Player Prop: James Kaprielian over 5.5 strikeouts (+108)
Since we do not have any pitcher props for Jackson Kowar, we are going to attack James Kaprielian’s strikeout prop, which is currently at plus money. The 27-year-old has racked up a good amount of strikeouts in his five big-league starts with 28 strikeouts in 26.1 IP. He has gone over 5.5 strikeouts in 3 out of 5 starts this season, which two of those outings coming against the Angels and Boston Red Sox.
He’ll be going up against a Royals squad that is struggling right now, only averaging 2.8 runs in their last five games. But they do not strikeout a ton at 8.08 times per game, which is second-best in the majors. However, their strikeouts go up to 8.68 strikeouts per game on road.
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