Jac Caglianone has been a key factor in fueling the Kansas City Royals’ successful start to June.

He also continues to fare well against the Texas Rangers.

After powering the Royals to a series-opening triumph over the visiting Rangers, Caglianone will look to help his team record a fourth straight victory on Wednesday night.

Kansas City entered June with a 22-37 record, and averaged 2.9 runs while losing 16 of its final 19 games in May. However, the Royals have averaged 5.3 runs and clubbed 10 homers while 6-2 in June.

“A lot of confidence, I think we’re not kind of letting previous days drag on into the next,” Caglianone told Royals.TV.

“Each day’s a new day. There’s plenty of new opportunities.”

Caglianone, the highly touted outfielder still trying to find his rhythm in his first full MLB season, was batting .236 as the calendar turned to June. Following a two-homer night that helped Kansas City overcome a 2-0 hole and win 5-3 over Texas on Tuesday, Caglianone is 10-for-21 with three home runs and seven RBIs in seven games this month.

He’s batting .348 in six career games versus Texas. Both of his two-home run games have come against the Rangers.

Caglianone, however, went 0-for-2 with a strikeout on May 29 against scheduled Texas starter MacKenzie Gore (4-5, 4.23 ERA), who was stellar against the Royals, allowing four hits and a walk over 6 1/3 scoreless innings of his team’s 9-1 victory. In two career starts versus Kansas City, the left-hander has yielded only one run over 13 1/3 innings for a 0.68 ERA.

However, Gore needs to rebound after he gave up four runs, nine hits and issued three first-inning walks over 4 2/3 of the Rangers’ 5-3 loss at St. Louis last week.

“It looked like maybe he was trying to overcook some of the balls to try to get a punchout, and then kind of left the balls up,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said.

Texas had won seven of nine prior to Tuesday’s defeat to close in on the .500 mark. The Rangers are 32-34 and haven’t hit .500 since they were 14-14 on April 26.

“Didn’t really think about (getting back to .500), just thinking about winning that first game of the series,” Schumaker, whose team went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position on Tuesday, told Rangers.TV.

Josh Jung had two more hits for the Rangers in the series opener, raising his batting average to .316. He’s 8-for-18 with four runs scored in four games versus Kansas City this season.

Jung homered off scheduled Royals starter Seth Lugo (2-4, 3.91 ERA) during Texas’ 7-6 win on May 30.

Lugo recorded three straight quality starts, including that outing at Texas, in which he gave up three runs (one earned) and six hits while striking out six in six innings. However, that run ended Thursday, when the veteran right-hander yielded five earned runs and six hits, including three homers, over five innings of Kansas City’s 8-6 win at Minnesota.

Though the Rangers rallied to beat the Royals in Lugo’s most recent appearance against them, he’s 1-0 with a 1.86 ERA in fgur career appearances (three starts) against Texas.

–Field Level Media

The St. Louis Cardinals enjoyed a stress-free victory over the New York Mets on Tuesday.

The Cardinals hope to combine timely hitting, strong defense and stellar pitching again Wednesday night when they visit the Mets for the second game of their three-game series.

St. Louis, which will attempt to match a season high with its sixth straight victory. has won three of the four meetings with the Mets so far. Following consecutive tight wins over the Cincinnati Reds to complete a three-game sweep, the Cardinals scored six runs off Freddy Peralta and cruised to a 7-0 win in the series opener.

Alec Burleson, who is hitting .389 in a nine-game hitting streak, belted a two-run homer and drove in three runs, and Ivan Herrera and Nathan Church collected three hits apiece. Church’s effort followed a brief stint on the injured list due to a sprained left shoulder, and he also made a basket catch while going against the wind in center field on Marcus Semien’s drive in the fourth.

“Coming off an off day and going to the Mets and giving them a shutout, it’s a great start,” Church said. “So, trying to get another one tomorrow.”

Jordan Walker also is coming off an RBI double and is up to 48 RBIs this season, three shy of his career high set in 2023 when he batted .276 in 117 games as a rookie.

New York is 7-4 in its past 11 games but turned in a dud after rookie Carson Benge went 5-for-5 in Sunday’s 7-3 win at San Diego. The Mets were held to five hits and lead the majors with 21 games of being held to five hits or fewer this season.

“We never want to start that way, especially me,” Peralta said. “We won the last game in San Diego and (came) from there, expecting after an off-day to start on the right foot.”

Juan Soto had a single on Tuesday, however the slugger is just 3-for-27 this month.

After getting six stellar innings from Dustin May, the Cardinals will turn to fellow right-hander Andre Pallante (6-4, 3.96 ERA) to start on Wednesday. Pallante is attempting to surpass his win total from last season when he went 6-15 in 31 starts.

Pallante has allowed two earned runs or fewer in seven starts this season. He did so for the third time in four starts last Wednesday when he allowed one run on three hits in 5 2/3 innings during a 5-3 victory over the Texas Rangers.

Pallante’s only scoreless outing this season was against the Mets in St. Louis on March 31 when he allowed three hits. He is 1-2 with a 4.40 ERA in 11 career appearances (four starts) versus New York.

Christian Scott originally was slated to pitch Wednesday but will get the nod on Thursday afternoon. Instead, the Mets will use right-hander Austin Warren (1-2, 2.01) as an opener for the second time. Warren threw 19 pitches June 1 in Seattle ahead of Sean Manaea’s five innings.

Warren has allowed three hits over three scoreless innings in two relief appearances against the Cardinals.

Since Manaea pitched on Sunday, left-hander David Peterson is expected to serve as the bulk reliever. Peterson is 2-0 with a 1.88 ERA in six relief appearances after going 1-5 with a 7.56 ERA in seven starts.

Peterson last pitched May 31 when he threw 51 pitches in the final four innings of a 10-1 win over the Marlins.

–Field Level Media

The World Cup starts tomorrow and the Knicks go for a 3-1 lead tonight so there’s plenty of high profile sporting events on tap.

But hey, it’s wall to wall baseball today so let’s try to get back in the black with some MLB picks.

Season Record 33-30-1, -0.23Units

Phillies at Blue Jays

Jesus Luzardo Under 17.5 Outs Recorded (+140 BetMGM)

Bets are supposed to be about the price, right? Well, that’s exactly my angle here as I’m a fan of Luzardo as a pitcher. Especially when he’s on his game as he’s often an ace and you wonder why he can’t do that every game. Well the fact is he can’t as he’ll toss a gem one outing and then another and then get lit up in the next one. It has produced an uneven season. He has an 18.9% K-BB% which ranks 22nd among 66 qualified pitchers but he has an ERA of 4.56 which ranks 56th. He’s gone 73 IP in his 13 starts, so that’s about 5.5 per outing

The Jays are a modestly subpar offense with a 96 wRC+ on the season, but they’re on the pesky side. They have the 2nd lowest K% in the league at 19.3% so there’s a lot of balls in play. And that does not bode particularly well for Luzardo. He’s a heavy groundball pitcher and at -6 If Fielding Runs saved the Phillies have one of their worst team defenses in MLB.

The Jays absolutely torched Luzardo in their meeting last year with 9 hits and 8 runs in just 2.1 IP. I doubt we see a repeat of that, but they may give him a tough time again today so let’s try the under on his outs prop with a nice plus money cushion.

Brewers at Athletics*

Under 14.5 Runs (-102 BetMGM)

Again, the asterisk is to remember the game will take place in Vegas. 14.5 is of course a monstrous total, but it’s not unjustified.

The Brewers alone got there on Monday and the A’s just missed as the Crew won 15-14 in extra innings. It was a little tamer last night as the A’s took the game 7-5. It’s a leap of faith here, but it’s still tough to get to 15 runs combined, even in this heat and altitude.

Part of it is thanks to the pitching matchup, which on paper looks very weak. In the Brewers case there’s some truth behind it as there’s not a lot in Brandon Sproat’s data that suggests he’s much better than his 6.17 ERA. But he is actually. His 12.1% BB% is awful, but he also has a 24.1% K%. His 4.45 SIERA is bad, but not 6+ ERA bad.

A’s starter Jack Perkins on the other hand is considerably better than his 6.19 ERA as he’s got a 20.8% K-BB% with elite contact suppression skills. His xERA is just 3.30. Now most of that came as a reliever as he’s in the process of converting to the rotation. But the metrics look encouraging so far as he’s gone 8.1 IP in his two extended outings and he’s got 13 K’s vs. just 2 BB’s. Let’s close our eyes and take the under here.