BEST LINE: Pinnacle +107

Shame on the Royals. The White Sox came into this series having lost three consecutive series and they also lost Jose Abreu to an ankle injury. With an opportunity to improve their record and catching the South Side at the right time, K.C. failed to win against Scott Carroll on Monday after blowing a 5-0 lead and they failed to win yesterday with Yordano Ventura going. Now the pitching matchup does not favor them in the least. Jeremy Guthrie has 27 K’s in 59 innings. He also has an ERA of 4.76 which is right in line with his xERA of 4.61. You can see from Guthrie's ERA and hit % history that only good fortune (2010) can nudge his ERA under 4.00. Two things he excels at: eating innings and generating work for defenders behind him. We would love to see pedometer readings on his defense compared to a Shields or a Ventura start. The bottom line is that Guthrie has a better chance of losing than he does of winning every single time he takes the mound.

The White Sox are clearly happy with Jose Quintana’s progress, as they recently signed him to a five-year contract extension. While the 25-year old Quintana does not garner the headlines, he’s posted solid numbers in his first two years so it’s not surprising that the White Sox like what they see. Quintana shows improvement with nice gains in control, strikeouts and groundball %. Quintana really broke out in the second half of last season, as he posted a 65%/6% dominant start/disaster start split over 17 second half starts. His fastball velocity is up a tick but the major difference is an increased pitch mix. Quintana has a repertoire that matches Zack Greinke’s. He’ll use five different pitches at any time in the count and his strong five-pitch mix has been equally effective against both RHB and LHB. Quintana has a strong BB/K split of 15/45 in 54 frames. His ERA of 3.67 is supported by his xERA of 3.59. With his skills surging to elite levels, he's got the ingredients for an outstanding season and he’s a much better option taking back a tag than Guthrie and the Royals are spotting one.