The New York Yankees hosted the Kansas City Royals on April 17 with both clubs looking for relief from recent form. The Yankees had won eight straight games against Kansas City before this meeting, but both teams came in at 3-7 over their previous 10 games.
That mismatch in recent momentum mattered because the preview leaned heavily toward another low-scoring game. Michael Wacha entered with a 0.43 ERA and had stayed under the 8.0 total in all three of his outings this season, while Cam Schlittler had piled up seven or more strikeouts in each of his four starts. The Under had gone 7-2 in the last nine meetings between the Yankees and Royals and 4-0 in the past four matchups at Yankee Stadium.
The trends also matched the way each lineup had been producing. Kansas City was averaging just 3.42 runs per game, and New York's.214 batting average ranked fourth-lowest in the majors. The Yankees' offense had not looked much like a World Series contender this month, which added to the sense that runs could be hard to come by again.
Tom Oldfield said the Yankees would be glad to see a familiar opponent in the Royals, a team they have historically handled well and one that did not look likely to change that script on this night. He also said that with both starters in a good rhythm, he was sticking with the trends that pointed to the Under.
That leaves the game set up less as a test of firepower than of whether either club can break from the pattern. The Yankees have owned the matchup, but the recent numbers on both sides point in the opposite direction, and that is where the pressure sits in this one.