St. Louis Cardinals @ Kansas City Royals - May 18, 2025

As I gear up for another day in the betting trenches, it’s time to focus on the matchup between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City Royals at Ewing M. Kauffman Stadium. The Cardinals are riding high, having won three straight games and boasting a solid record of 26-20. Now they’ll send their lefty to the mound against a struggling Royals team that has lost four consecutive games.

Looking at starting pitchers, we have Matthew Liberatore for St. Louis, who comes in with a 3-3 record and an ERA of 3.1. His strikeouts per game sit around 7.1, which indicates he can be a nuisance for opposing hitters if he’s on his game. However, let’s not overlook the other side: Michael Wacha from Kansas City has been impressive with a slightly better ERA of 3.1 and a win-loss record of 3-4—though his strikeout rate is higher at about 8.2.

The oddsmakers opened this contest with St. Louis as slight favorites at -103 on the moneyline; however, my gut tells me there’s potential value in backing the Royals today despite their current slump. Sometimes when teams hit rock bottom, they find a way to turn things around—call it superstition or experience talking, but there’s something about the underdog narrative that gets me every time.

On offense, St. Louis has been more productive than Kansas City overall this season—they’re averaging nearly 4.8 runs per game compared to just over 3.4 for the Royals—and their batting average is significantly better at .258 versus .236 for Kansas City. But remember what I said about streaks: trends can break quickly in baseball.

The total for this game opened at 8 runs, and given that both teams have shown tendencies to go UNDER recently (with St. Louis hitting UNDER in five of their last seven), I find myself leaning towards an OVER prediction here instead—perhaps because I’m feeling lucky today! The Royals have historically put up surprising offensive performances when least expected; maybe today is one of those days where they finally break through.

My strategy going into this match will likely involve placing a sprinkle bet on Kansas City to take home the victory while also hitting that OVER line as both teams might surprise us with unexpected scoring sprees.

In conclusion, while conventional wisdom might lean toward riding with St. Louis due to their recent success—the betting gods are always watching! So I’m putting my chips down on the Royals reclaiming some momentum against a team that may be due for regression after such hot play lately.

Let’s hope fortune favors us today as we navigate this ever-turbulent seas of MLB betting!