BEST LINE: Pinnacle -112

James Shields is 6-3 with an ERA of 2.67 and he and the Royals opened as the favorite here because Shields’ mount opponent is a rookie with just two major-league starts. That said, we’re not buying Shields’ hot start because the skills don’t support his stats. Shields’ xERA over his last three starts is 4.49. He’s been aided by a high strand rate of 79% and a low hit rate of 28%. Both of those are unsustainable. Shields’ groundball/line-drive/fly-ball profile is league average and it looks like the big groundball gain in 2012 was an aberration. He’s also giving up a lot more line drives than usual. Shields’ will now face an Angels team that has won five of six and 11 of their past 14 games. The Angels have also scored six runs or more in six of their past 11 wins.

Matt Shoemaker replaced Hector Santiago in the rotation and pitched well in his first two big league starts, both of which were wins (3 ER, 9 K in 11 IP). The more we look at this matchup, the more value we see in Shoemaker and the Angels. The Royals have one of the worst OBP's (.307) in the majors against RHP. Shoemaker is capable of striking batters out at a high rate, as his 9.1 K’s/9 in the minors and his 14 K’s in 18 innings at this level will attest to. Shoemaker also has an elite groundball rate of 57% as a starter, a WHIP of 0.96 and most of all he now has confidence to go along with his good overall stuff and great command. With that, we’ll step in and spot the cheap price.