The Toronto Blue Jays need a win today to avoid a three-game sweep in their final road series of the regular season.
The pregame narrative: After a pair of losses to the Kansas City Royals, the Jays are no longer in a very comfortable spot atop the American League standings. But with a two-game lead in the AL East and a three-game cushion for a bye, Toronto is still in pole position.
Check out my Blue Jays picks vs. the Royals for the Sept. 21 game at Kauffman Stadium, featuring prop predictions on Trey Yesavage and Mike Yastrzemski.
Blue Jays picks vs. Royals
Best bet: Under 9 runs (-110)
The Blue Jays have thrown their top pitching prospect, Trey Yesavage, right into the fire known as an MLB playoff race. He excelled in his first start, and I’m hoping for more of the same on Sunday.
After working a 3.22 ERA across four minor league levels this season, Yesavage took a five-inning no-decision in a 2-1 win last Monday over the Tampa Bay Rays.
If he continues his strong form today, great. But if not, the Blue Jays should have ample support behind him, with a bullpen that includes a pair of rested high-leverage relievers and a recently demoted Jose Berrios.
Toronto has the highest overs rate in MLB (84-65-6, 56.4%), per Team Rankings, but there are other factors to consider here:
- Most of Toronto’s high-scoring games come at Rogers Centre. On the road, the Blue Jays hit the over 52.6% of the time (10th in MLB).
- Kansas City has MLB’s highest unders rate at home (62.0%), as well as the fourth-highest unders rate overall (56.2%).
- The Blue Jays’ offence has a 72 wRC+ in the past two weeks, which ranks 25th in MLB. In this series, the Jays have just two runs on seven hits in 18 innings.
Michael Wacha starts for the Royals after a truly miserable outing on Sept. 16 against the blazing hot Seattle Mariners (2.2 IP, nine hits, seven runs). Before that, he’d been lights out for a while.
In a 10-start stretch from July 11 through Sept. 5, Wacha had a 2.79 ERA and a .224 opponent batting average. The average total in those games was 7.9 runs.
Key stat: In Wacha’s past 15 starts, this under is 10-5.
Jays prop predictions
Yesavage over 4.5 Ks (-120): The only team with a strikeout rate lower than the Blue Jays since the all-star break is … the Royals. That makes the over on this strikeouts prop a more difficult side to argue for.
But Yesavage was so devastatingly good in his debut outing, and I believe the unfamiliarity between him and KC should work in the young right-hander’s favour.
- Over 5.0 IP last Monday vs. the Rays, Yesavage compiled nine strikeouts — a franchise record for an MLB debut.
- Yesavage had 19 whiffs against Tampa, and according to MLB.com’s research department, that tied for the fifth-most in an MLB debut since 2008 (i.e., the start of the pitch tracking era).
Toronto has an off-day on Monday, and Berrios is available in the bullpen now to provide length if needed. So the Jays won’t need to push Yesavage deep into this game.
But he shouldn’t need a huge workload to contend for this prop. After all, he cashed this in the third inning last time out.
Yastrzemski under 0.5 hits (-108): Simply put, Yastrzemski is a struggling hitter who doesn’t profile well against Yesavage’s pitch mix.
- The Royals outfielder is 7-for-56 (.125) in his past 18 games. He has gone hitless in 10 of 16 starts during that span.
- Yesavage’s two secondary pitches are splitters and sliders. Against RHPs throwing those pitches, Yastrzemski is 3-for-17 (.176).
Yastrzemski is a platoon player as it is, with aggressive righty/lefty splits (.247 BA vs. righties, .138 BA vs. lefties).
He’ll likely be lifted from the game if the Blue Jays bring in a lefty reliever, which means he should have less than a full game’s worth of opportunities.
Blue Jays picks made at 8:40 a.m. ET on 09/21/2025.
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Jordan enjoys writing data-driven game previews and analysis articles — especially for MLB markets or NFL/NBA props. And as a proud Ohio University grad, he’ll always have a soft spot for college sports (especially if the Bobcats are involved). Previous stops include mlb.com, Sportsnet and The Athletic.