In today’s SportSense Entertainment Newsletter…

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There were plenty of model predictions to go around yesterday across the MLB, with our model focusing in on one of those predictions in our Featured Matchup. That prediction went 1-0 overall, and you can see how the rest of the model performed below.

Money Line Predictions: 3-12

Over/Under Predictions: 3-10-2

Run Line Predictions: 10-5

Featured Matchup: 1-0

Nine MLB games are scheduled to take place today. Our model’s predictions for all nine matchups can be found below.

Kansas City Royals @ Oakland Athletics

Model Predicts- Royals ML, UNDER 7.5, Athletics +1.5

The Kansas City Royals will continue their nine-game road trip on Thursday, taking on the Oakland Athletics in the final game of a three-game series.

Surprisingly, Kansas City has had some trouble against Oakland thus far, losing the first two games of the series. The Royals have now lost three games in a row and have fallen to third place in the AL Central with a 41-34 record, while the wins gave a slight boost to Oaklands disappointing 28-48 record.

Our model projects the Royals to get back on track this afternoon and find the win column, but it still expects the Athletics to keep things close. Let’s dive into why that is.

Kansas City Royals

• Enter today on three-game losing streak

  • One loss to Dodgers, two losses to Athletics

  • Own -9 run differential in that span. Held to one run or less in two games

• Strong offense has disappeared in June

  • Prior to June 1st- Ranked 12th in wRC+ (101), 11th in BABIP (.288), and 7th in OPS (.724)

  • Since June 1st- Rank 22nd in wRC+ (91), 26th in BABIP (.272), and 20th in OPS (.683)

• Starting pitcher- Seth Lugo

  • Due for regression- 2.40 ERA vs 3.91 xERA

  • Pitching to contact- Ranks in bottom 20% of MLB in Whiff rate (21.1%), bottom 34% in Strikeout rate (20.2%)

Oakland Athletics

• Enter today on two-game win streak

  • Outscored Royals 7-5 in Game 1, 5-1 in Game 2

  • Wins snapped a nine-game losing streak

• Offense is seeing ball well in current series

  • Own 147 wRC+ (3rd in MLB), .347 BABIP (4th), and .853 OPS (4th) over last two games

  • Getting on base via the walk as well- 11.8% walk rate ranks 3rd in MLB over last two games

• Starting pitcher- Mitch Spence

  • Pitching to expectations- 3.95 ERA vs 3.73 xERA

  • Great at limiting walks and fly balls- 6.1% walk rate and 49.1% ground ball rate

What’s the Play?

It’s not often we see the Oakland Athletics in a position to complete a sweep, but that is the case this afternoon. We think it would be a stretch to back the A’s on the money line here, but we do agree with our model that there is some value on their run line.

Lugo has been one of the best pitchers in baseball on paper, but some of his numbers under the hood are concerning. The 1.51-run gap between his real ERA and xERA shows that his opponents are due to score more runs while he is on the mound, and his struggles to limit contact could put him in a tough spot against a surprisingly hot Athletics offense.

Additionally, there are some concerns with Kansas City’s pitching behind Seth Lugo. The Royals’ bullpen owns a solid 3.51 ERA in June, but a significantly higher 4.30 xFIP (23rd), which hints some regression is near for the relievers as well.

Spence has been a solid option on the mound for Oakland, and he should have plenty of run support today as his offense will go against an over-performing pitching staff. We’ll back Oakland to keep this close.

The Play: Athletics +1.5 (-125)

Money Line Trends 💰

• Cleveland Guardians- 45-26 overall this season, 22-9 as the home team

• St. Louis Cardinals- 36-37 overall this season, 17-15 as the home team

Over/Under Trends ⬆️⬇️

• Houston Astros- Under is 45-26-3 this season, highest win percentage in MLB

• Milwaukee Brewers- Over is 38-31-5 this season, 25-15-3 after a win

Run Line Trends ➕➖

• Baltimore Orioles- Run line is 45-28 this season, 12-3 as an underdog

🧹 Red Sox bring out the brooms in Toronto. Jarren Duran and Enmanuel Valdez hit solo home runs, and Brayan Bello pitched six innings to help the Boston Red Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays 7-3, completing a three-game sweep. Duran extended his hitting streak to 10 games, and Valdez scored all three times he reached base as the Red Sox won their fifth straight and eighth in their last 10 games. The Red Sox, who have won three straight series including sweeps of the Phillies and Yankees, capitalized on four Toronto errors, while Bello earned his first win since May 28.

💪 Tanner Bibee leads Guardians to shutout win. Tanner Bibee struck out a career-high 12 batters in six innings, and Josh Naylor homered twice with four RBIs to lead the Cleveland Guardians to an 8-0 victory over the Seattle Mariners. Bibee, who allowed only three hits and one walk, induced 20 swing-and-misses, while Steven Kwan and José Ramírez each contributed to the offense as the Guardians secured their eighth shutout of the season. Bryan Woo, making his first start since June 6 for Seattle, gave up three runs in four innings.

Today’s trivia requires you to dig into multiple pockets of your brain, testing your knowledge of recent events as well as those that happened decades ago.

See how many of the below questions you can get correct. Answers are provided at the end of the newsletter.

Question #1- The NBA hands out several awards at the end the of regular season, two of which are the Sixth Man of the Year award and Most Improved Player award. Several players have won each award over the years, but only one player has won both in the same season. Who was that player?

Question #2- Before moving to Los Angeles, the Dodgers called Brooklyn, New York their home. The “Dodgers” name stuck with the team, and it was originally created if reference to “dodging” ________ throughout the city of Brooklyn?

Question #3- Robert Griffin III took the NFL by storm his rookie season, setting a rookie NFL record with a 102.4 passer rating. That record would only last a few seasons though, eventually being broken by a quarterback that posted a 104.9 passer rating in his rookie season. Who is that quarterback?

Anyone know what has happened on June 20th throughout history? We didn’t have a clue either, but it appears that it has been a busy day.

On June 20th…

1936- Jesse Owens sets the 100 meter dash World Record, completing the event in just 10.2 seconds. What makes the feat more remarkable is that Owens was still a student at Ohio State University, setting the World Record at the 1936 NCAA National Championships. That record would be the catalyst for an historic summer for Owens, who would go on to win four Olympic gold medals in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin just two months later.

1950- New York Yankees legend Joe DiMaggio records his 2,000th career hit in a 8-2 victory over the Cleveland Indians. DiMaggio was one of the more consistent hitters during his era of baseball, batting .325 for his career and recording 2,214 hits by the time he retired, ranking him 183rd in MLB history. He is also the owner of a 56-game hitting streak, which remains the MLB record to this day.

1993- The Chicago Bulls defeat the Phoenix Suns 99-98 in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, giving Chicago its third consecutive NBA title. The Bulls became just the second NBA team to win three NBA titles in a row, joining a Boston Celtics franchise that won eight championships in a row from 1959-1966. John Paxson sank the series-clinching three-pointer, and Michael Jordan won Finals MVP after averaging 41.0 points, 8.5 rebounds, and 6.3 assists in the series.

1. Darrell Armstrong

2. Trolleys

3. Dak Prescott