#963/984 ASA PLAY ON Under 7 Runs – Kansas City Royals vs Detroit Tigers, Friday at 6:40 PM ET - Low total but this one is set up to be a pitchers duel. The Tigers continue to struggle at the plate in almost every game in recent weeks and they have their ace pitcher on the mound. That sets this one up to be dominated by the pitchers. Royals starter Cole Ragans is off a couple mediocre outings but his long-term numbers tell the full story and, again, this Detroit team is just not hitting. The Tigers are 2-7 last 9 games and only scored big runs in one of those games. In the other 8 games Detroit scored an average of only 2 runs. Ragans will take advantage. The Kansas City southpaw has a 2.83 ERA on the road this season with opponents hitting only .214 against him. Also, he has struck out 21 in 13 innings in his 2 career starts against the Tigers. One of those was this season and Ragans pitched 6 scoreless innings and struck out 12 while allowing only 1 hit. Detroit starter is their ace, as we noted above, and Tarik Skubal is 7-0 with a 1.95 ERA and has held opponents to a .171 batting average against in his home starts this season. In Skubal's last 7 home starts, Tigers opponents have ended up totaling just 12 runs for the entirety of those games. That is an average of only 1.7 runs per game. Couple that with Detroit's recent scoring woes and you have the ideal setup for an offensively-challenged match-up here. Based on all of the above, this one will be a tight low-scoring battle! Our computer math model projecting 5 runs here as the most likely outcome. We are going with the Under in this one.