Kansas City Royals vs St. Louis Cardinals Prediction, Odds and Picks for Today, 05/17/26

It’s been a brutal stretch for the Kansas City Royals, who have lost 6 games in a row and 8 of their last 10. They will look to salvage a win against their rival St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday, but it doesn’t look like an appetizing matchup from Kansas City‘s perspective. They’ll send Stephen Kolek to the mound, who has given up 8 earned runs in his 2 starts thus far (10.2 innings). Advanced metrics suggest he will regress back to the mean, but I’m not banking on it happening today against a Cardinals lineup that has been one of the best in baseball over the last couple weeks.

Andre Pallante will take the ball for the Cardinals, sporting a solid season thus far – though inconsistent. He’s allowed 8 earned runs over his last 11 innings, and his strikeout rate in those 3 starts suffered compared to his 3 starts prior – in which he whiffed 19 combined batters against the Astros, Mariners and Pirates. From a bullpen perspective, St. Louis and Kansas City are 2 of the worst in the league. Both units have an ERA of 4.5 or higher while allowing over 160 combined runs.

In a matchup between 2 volatile pitching staffs, the weather only strengthens the case for an over, as the weather forecast in St. Louis calls for 87 degrees with wind blowing out to left-center at around 15 to 16 MPH. There should be runs aplenty on Sunday, especially when you consider there’s not much of a getaway factor here. The Royals will just make the short trip back to Kansas City after this game, and the Cardinals are off tomorrow. 

Royals vs Cardinals prediction: Over 9 (-115) at the time of publishing. Playable to -120.

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