Dave Malinsky 9/17
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Top of the Ticket - KC/Detroit
4* #959 KANSAS CITY over DETROIT
Zack Greinke?s brilliant 2009 season may not be enough to get him the Cy Young award ? pitching for a bad team cuts you short in the W/L column. But not only has been the best pitcher in the sport this summer, he is taking his game to an even higher level now, with a sparkling 0.38 over his last three starts. To get him in this price range against the tiring Edwin Jackson is a major bargain here, as a loose and confident Royal team can continue a late-season surge against an opponent that is nothing special. Over the last nine games Kansas City has gone 7-2, while it has been a 3-6 slide for Detroit. Five of those games were head-to-head encounters, with the Royals going 4-1, and dominating them by a combined count of 33-14. And note that those five wins came without an appearance from Greinke. Now it is bad news for a Tiger lineup that has not been able to catch up this his stuff this season, managing just four runs over 31 innings in the four outings that they did face him, games in which Greinke had a dominating count of 34 strikeouts vs. 19 hits allowed. He should be able to build a bridge all the way to the rested Joakim Soria, who has not been scored on since August 24th, and sits at 2.56 with 25 saves. Meanwhile Jackson has also had a career turning season, but at 190 innings he is no longer what he was earlier in the campaign. A 2.52 ERA at the All Star break has turned into a 4.48 since then, and three times in his last seven outings he has been tagged for multiple home runs, including allowing three to Toronto in his last start. We peg him as vulnerable here, and in a night-to-day setting the Tiger bullpen brings issues as well, with Zach Minor, Bobby Seay, Brandon Lyon and Fernando Rodney all having to work last night.