The final game of this series gets going at 12:10 p.m. ET, which means there’s no time to drag out this intro.

Let’s simply preview this American League clash between the Royals and the Rays and make a couple picks on the DraftKings Sportsbook.

Royals vs. Rays prediction, preview

The Royals are 13 games below .500. They’re within percentage points of being the worst team in the AL. So, I don’t think any fan or member of the organization would take too kindly to me referring to any aspect of this season as lucky. However, that’s been Seth Lugo’s campaign to a tee. The 36-year-old probably isn’t going anywhere at the trade deadline, anyway, not after inking his extension, but let’s just say I’d be very wary of the veteran’s 3.69 ERA over 85.1 innings. Like, it’s an exceedingly blue Baseball Savant page, if you know what I mean. Lugo owns just a fourth percentile whiff rate (17.9%), which means a lot of batted ball events for opponents. That’s not necessarily a death sentence for a pitcher, but an 11th percentile opponent batting average (.277) and a 19th percentile opponent barrel rate (10.3%) aren’t great, either. This is how you end up with an expected ERA nearly a run-and-a-half higher than your surface numbers (5.21).

It’s not all bad news for Kansas City, though. Even with Vinnie Pasquantino (wrist) and Maikel Garcia (hand) on the IL — and Bobby Witt Jr. nursing a knee injury — the offense has been really good over the past two weeks. To wit, the Royals lead MLB in batting average (.292) and expected wOBA (.357) in that span of time, while also sitting eighth in ISO (.194). The big revelation during this recent run of success? 2024 first-round pick Jac Caglianone, who is slashing .354/.433/.734 with a 217 wRC+ in the month of June. That includes nine home runs in 90 plate appearances. Obviously it would be quite the ask for Caglianone to keep hitting at this pace, but this is the massive offensive ceiling that Kansas City envisioned when they used the sixth-overall pick on the Florida product.

Trying to keep Caglianone and the Royals at bay on Thursday afternoon with be a combination of Casey Legumina and Ian Seymour, with the latter having replaced Steven Matz in the Rays’ rotation at the beginning of June. Seymour’s the process of getting stretched out on the fly, as he’s thrown 55, 72 and 81 pitches, respectively, in his past three outings. The most recent of which was a five-inning effort against the Nationals where the 27-year-old southpaw surrendered seven hits and three earned runs. In the 100.1 innings Semour has thrown at the MLB level, he’s struck out 109 batters and he’s maintained a decent 3.82 FIP. There’s some real potential here.

Royals vs. Rays pick, best bet

Best Bet: Royals ML (+119)

While I don’t necessarily trust Seth Lugo, I do trust how well the Royals have been hitting across the past 14 days. It’s not like the Rays have been all that good lately, either. Tampa is just 8-13 in the month with a league-low .115 ISO. Take the road dog at plus-money.