Today's picks: Why Royals will beat Guardians, plus more MLB plays for Friday, July 8

Allan Bell is joined by top sports betting experts Larry Hartstein, Mike McClure and John Bollman on the Early Edge podcast, powered by SportsLine. Get highlighted plays for MLB on Friday, July 8, and you can stream the show live every morning on the SportsLine YouTube page.

John gets us started with an AL Central matchup featuring Cleveland at Kansas City: The SportsLine Projection Model favors the Guardians, but not Bollman: "The Guardians have now lost four straight games and they are second worst in the league in the past two weeks at 5-12. The Royals haven't looked much better in terms of their record at 5-9 in that span, but they have actually been playing pretty well. Their bullpen is a weakness, but they had a lead in all four games against the red hot Astros and won their series before that. The Guardians also aren't hitting right now with Josh Naylor and Oscar Gonzalez injured."

Larry eyes the NL Central with Pittsburgh opening a series in Milwaukee: "The first-place Brewers had Thursday off to stew on their back-to-back home losses to the Cubs in which they produced a total of four runs. Pittsburgh, meanwhile, played a doubleheader in Cincinnati on Thursday, then had to travel to Milwaukee. That scheduling quirk can only help our cause as the Brewers look to improve to 9-2 versus the Pirates this season and 21-5 at home in this matchup since 2019. Brewers lefty Aaron Ashby has pitched better than his 4.60 ERA would indicate, and Pittsburgh ranks 27th in OPS versus southpaws (.657). Play Milwaukee -1.5 runs at -105."

Mike loves his team totals and is going back to the Yankees again, Over 5 runs (-110) against the Red Sox and rookie Connor Seabold: "Same wind condition as Thursday (when Yankees scored 6). Seabold hasn't made it through the fifth inning yet this season. Aaron Judge should be back in the lineup for New York. Boston's bullpen is also used up. Love this up to 5.5 runs."

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