The Kansas City Royals are heading into this season with a great deal of optimism. \u00a0 <\/p>\n
Friday April 6 Probable Starters:<\/strong><\/p>\n PITCHING MATCHUP: Royals LH Bruce Chen (2011: 12-8, 3.77 ERA) vs. Angels RH Jered Weaver (2011: 18-8, 2.41 ERA)<\/p>\n Matchup<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Preview<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Kansas City<\/strong><\/p>\n Last year saw the arrival of first baseman Eric Hosmer as a bonafide big league and other players like Mike Moustakas took steps forward. \u00a0You might not have noticed but the Royals were one of the better hitting teams last year. \u00a0They aren\u2019t big thumpers but they hit for average and can work the count.<\/p>\n Unfortunately there hasn\u2019t been as much development on the pitching side of things, hence Bruce Chen taking the opening day slot. \u00a0Chen didn\u2019t embarrass himself last year but he is far from an ace and might not even make the Angels rotation.<\/p>\n Kansas City played the Angels well last year taking 7 of 10.<\/p>\n They won Chen\u2019s only start against him but he was long gone when they won in extra innings. [dfads params=’groups=10&limit=1&return_javascript=0′]<\/p>\n Anaheim<\/strong><\/p>\n There is a huge amount of excitement for the Angels as nobody did more to improve themselves over the winter. \u00a0The grabbed Albert Pujols from the World Series winning Cardinals and nabbed C.J. Wilson from the runner up Rangers.<\/p>\n Without them this team was already a contender, with them, this team should probably be the odds on favourite to win it all with a deep rotation and long lineup.<\/p>\n Last year was starter\u2019s Jered Weaver\u2019s best year as a pro. \u00a0He has lowered his ERA each of the last 4 seasons in a row while simultaneously increasing his innings<\/p>\n If that trend continues he will probably win the Cy Young Award he nearly grabbed last season. \u00a0With Pujols in tow this team should just rake against lefties like Chen as their best lineup features nothing but righthanded hitters.<\/p>\n The lone weak spot on this team is a bullpen dependent on Jordan Walden who had 10 blown saves last year<\/p>\n O\/U Pick: \u00a0Over Kansas City Royals (0-0) vs Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (0-0) The Kansas City Royals are heading into this season with a great deal of optimism. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":23207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[670],"tags":[31060,108,3882,111,502,4092,11334,30885,22695,31459,14228,27450,3775,691,1028,1090,54480],"class_list":["post-50218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb-baseball","tag-angels","tag-baseball-handicapping","tag-baseball-lines","tag-baseball-picks","tag-gambling-lines","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-kansas-city-royals-vs-l-a-angels","tag-l-a","tag-l-a-angels","tag-mlb-baseball-previews","tag-mlb-free-pick","tag-mlb-odds","tag-mlb-predictions","tag-predictions","tag-royals","tag-royals-angels-gambling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50218"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107937,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50218\/revisions\/107937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAngel Stadium of Anaheim – Anaheim, CA
\n10:05PM
\nMoneyline: \u00a0Los Angeles -200, Kansas City +180
\nO\/U: 7<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nScore Prediction: \u00a0Angels 7 – Royals 2<\/strong><\/p>\nView The MLB Cappers Leaderboard For 2011 \u00a0– Picks Packages for 2012 On Sale! \u2014\u2013><\/strong><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"