New York’s Clarke Schmidt makes his season debut against a Royals lineup that has not been off to a good start offensively. Kansas City is hitting .184 on the road thus far and have only scored more than four runs twice in their six road games of the season. The Yankees bats have cooled off, hitting .234 over their last seven days and go up against Kris Bubic who’s only allowed two earned runs in 12 innings on the road. These are also two of the better bullpens in the AL to this point.

Finding value at this price for Kris Bubic against Clarke Schmidt, who is coming off the IL for his first start of the year. The Yankees have won the first two games of this series and despite the lack of run production from the Royals so far this year, I do believe their offense is due for some positive regression. Kris Bubic has been stellar and the Yankees have struggled against lefties not named Nestor Cortes or Bailey Falter.

The Yankees' numbers against lefties are buoyed by 15 runs over six innings against Nestor Cortes and Bailey Falter. Both lefties are much worse than the southpaw they will see tonight, Kris Bubic. New York has also faced lefties Robbie Ray, Tarik Skubal and Andrew Heaney, resulting in 23 strikeouts in 17 innings and two runs allowed. Bubic has thrown at least 92 pitches in each start and avoids fly balls, which helps when pitching in Yankee Stadium. His swinging strike rate in 30 innings last year was a healthy 15% and that number looks about the same so far this year, which is great news. About 30 cents of value here imo.

The Yankees aren't horrible against lefties as they were a year ago, but it's also still small sample size. They are 15th in MLB in K-rate vs lefties at home, but they also haven't seen many as nasty as Kris Bubic. The kid has racked up 21 Ks already and uses a deep pitch mix, garnering 5 or more Ks with three different pitches already this season. He's also a reverse splits guy, so if Aaron Boone does the traditional thing (um, I bet he will!) and loads up with righty bats here, it plays to Bubic's favor. Ask Brandon Hyde how that worked out for him last time out. I'm buying Bubic's stuff.

Kris Bubic is legit. Yeah, the Yankees have hit lefties well early on, but haven't seen one like this yet. Bubic has wipeout stuff with 21Ks already and a 0.96 ERA. He's in 88th % in pitching run value and has 5+Ks on 3 different pitches already this season. His change, sweeper and sinker all rate plus-plus right now. I tend to fade starters like Clarke Schmidt who are coming back from a lengthy injury absence. The Royals will work up his pitch count and I don't think we see any length from him. There is an underbelly in Yanks pen if that is the case.