The Kansas City Royals host the Milwaukee Brewers on April 3, 2026. First pitch from Kauffman Stadium is scheduled for 7:45 p.m. EDT. The game will be broadcast on Apple TV+.
The Brewers are favored by -110 on the moneyline and by -1.5 on the run line. The Royals are -106 on the moneyline and +1.5 on the run line. The total is set at 9 runs.
Find my MLB picks and Brewers vs Royals prediction below, as well as probable pitchers, weather report, and more.
Brewers vs Royals Prediction
- Brewers vs Royals Pick: Lean Brewers ML (+100 or Better)
Brewers vs Royals Odds
| Brewers Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Total | Moneyline |
-1.5 +136 | 9 -115o / -105u | -110 |
| Royals Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Total | Moneyline |
+1.5 -164 | 9 -115o / -105u | -106 |
- Brewers vs Royals spread: Brewers -1.5 (+136), Royals +1.5 (-164)
- Brewers vs Royals over/under: 9 (-115 / -105)
- Brewers vs Royals moneyline: Brewers -110, Royals -106
Brewers vs Royals Projected Starting Pitchers
| Chad Patrick (RHP) | Stat | Luinder Avila (RHP) |
|---|---|---|
| 0-0 | W-L | Season Debut |
| 0.0 | fWAR (FanGraphs) | |
| 2.08 / 3.43 | ERA / xERA | |
| 4.99 / 4.37 | FIP / xFIP | |
| 1.38 | WHIP | |
| 15.8% | K-BB% | |
| 28.6% | GB% | |
| 95 | Stuff+ | |
| 116 | Location+ |
Brewers vs Royals MLB Betting Preview
Milwaukee Brewers
This game features a pair of unique pitchers.
Starting with Chad Patrick, who throws fastballs. No, really…that’s it.
Around 10% of the time, he throws something else, but the other 90% of the time, batters will see some version of a fastball, whether it’s a four-seam (21.9% in 2025), sinker (23.6%), or cutter (41.2%). He didn’t stray too far from that pattern in his first start of the season either.
He’s also not afraid to elevate any of those pitchers, including the sinker. In fact, he prefers to do so. This particular approach led him to an impressive 17.3 K-BB rate in a rookie season in which his 3.53 ERA matched his FIP and wasn’t too far below his SIERA (3.90) or xERA (3.88), with a 102 Pitching+.
The problem he did have was with left-handed batters (.321 wOBA), against whom his changeup (7.3% vs LHBs) wasn’t very effective (.366 wOBA overall).
Patrick didn’t make it quite through five innings in his first start of the season against the White Sox, but the underlying process and performance were in line with his norms, while he allowed a single run with a 119 Pitching+. PitchingBot is not nearly as much of a fan (5.04 Bot ERA in this start, 5.08 last year).
Patrick may face more lefties than righties in Kansas City, and three of them (Vinnie Pasquantino, Carter Jensen, and Isaac Collins) boast a 130 wRC+ against right-handed pitching since last year. That said, Jensen didn’t have a very large sample, while Collins is one of the most successful batters against cutters in the league since last year (5.0 wFC/C).
With the addition of Collins and further development of Jensen and Jac Caglianone, the expectation is for the Royals to improve upon their 97 team wRC+ against righties last year.
Bobby Witt Jr. produced +7 Base Running Runs last year, while the rest of the projected lineup combined for -10. He is by far their best base-stealing threat against a formidable pair in Patrick and William Contreras when it comes to defending the running game.
The Milwaukee bullpen projects for the second-best FIP (3.88) and ERA (3.77) in the majors via Fangraphs Depth Charts. They should be well rested with Thursday off.
The defense has generally been excellent, with few weak links, generating 27 Runs Prevented last year (third-best in MLB) and the projected lineup (Rotowire and MLBstartingnine.com) coming in at +25 Fielding Run Value.
Kansas City Royals
Editor's Note: Michael Wacha was scratched due to illness. Luinder Avila will start in his place.
Michael Wacha is somewhat of a one-trick pitcher, and those generally don’t last in starting rotations for more than a decade, but it’s one hell of a trick.
While Wacha threw six different pitches between 7.7% and 29% last year, it’s the changeup that he’s generally thrown about a quarter of the time throughout his career that’s the star of this show.
The pitch carries a career grade of 70 overall via Pitching Bot overall and 123 from Pitching+, while besting both those marks last year. It has posted a wRC+ below 70 and a swinging-strike rate above 15% in each season since 2022.
One would suspect that would make Wacha a reverse split arm, and that’s been the case both last year (LHBs .283 wOBA, RHBs .316) and for his career (.291, .327). It’ll be interesting to see how Milwaukee counters that, as smarter teams have become better at recognizing and defending against these reverse splits.
In his first start of 2026, Wacha dominated the Braves, striking out seven over six shutout innings, and he did this with 17 whiffs on 80 pitches, throwing his changeup only nine times (four whiffs). This type of performance is essentially Wacha’s ceiling.
As mentioned, I’m a bit skeptical that the Brewers will run their standard right-handed lineup out there, which includes six lefties. Gary Sanchez might make sense with a 149 wRC+ and .286 ISO in just 62 PAs against right-handed pitching since last year, though he generally struggles against Wacha’s pitch mix against righties that includes throwing five pitches between 15% and 22% of the time last year.
Brice Turang may have the best matchup against Wacha, as he’s been even better against cutters (8.2 wFC/C) than Collins. Though Wacha would certainly have an easier time simply pivoting to other pitches than his counterpart, specifically said changeup, against which Turang was still slightly above average (1.1 wCH/C).
The Brewers are a very good base-running team with a +12 BRR spread throughout a projected lineup. It’s a full lineup effort with Sanchez and Contreras the only two among the potential nine without at least +1 BRR last year.
The combination of Wacha and Salvador Perez is just as effective as their counterparts in shutting down the running game (in a 75-inning sample of Jensen at the major league level, just two of four base stealers have been successful).
Fangraphs projects the Kansas City relief corps near the bottom of the league (4.15 FIP, 4.19 ERA), and they’ve already faced some adversity, losing expected closer Carlos Estevez to the IL. Having Lucas Erceg close shouldn’t be a problem, but having everyone else move up one spot might be.
The Kansas City defense was only two spots behind the Brewers last year (+23 Runs Prevented), and the projected lineup was similarly strong (+17 Fielding Run Value), though in this case, just three players (Witt, Garcia, Isbel) were responsible for 43 of those runs. That means the remaining projected starters were worth -26 Fielding Run Value.
Brewers vs Royals Picks
I rate these two pitchers nearly evenly, both close to league average, and also project the lineups as nearly equal, with expected improvements from the Kansas City side.
Though they get there in different ways, these teams grade out equally strong defensively.
The edges in the bullpen and base running on Milwaukee’s side do create a small rift, with just a bit of it going back to Kansas City’s way for home field.
As such, I make the Brewers very minor road favorites. With the market currently sitting near pick without plus money on either side, I won’t fall on either side unless it moves too far in the home team’s direction.
Before discussing the total, we have to cover the environment, and I left it for last because it’s the most difficult part of this equation.
Three-year Statcast park factors recognize Kansas City as one of the most power-suppressing parks in the league, with just a 76 park home run factor, a bit better for RHBs (93) than LHBs (73) — part of that is because the wind frequently blows out to the left in this park.
Yet, it’s also a slightly positive run environment (102 Park Run Factor).
Savvy baseball fans know that power-friendly parks aren’t necessarily high-scoring environments (see Yankee and Dodger Stadiums, both near neutral overall run environments).
Coors Field isn’t the most positive run environment in the league because it’s the most power-friendly, either. It’s because it has the largest outfield, which Kauffman Stadium also USED to have.
I say "used to" because Kauffman was the only park that was moderated during the off-season. Walls from both right and left field were moved in about 10 feet, with the height dropping by about a foot and a half. We certainly expect more home runs, but we can’t really tell what effect that will have on overall run scoring.
There’s a chance it could even lower BABIP and decrease run scoring, though I’m not arguing that’s likely.
Across three games, run totals of four, 22, and six give us no indication of anything.
If that’s not enough, we also have a strong potential for rain in the area, with industry sources (mlbweather.com and others) putting the chances of precipitation around 80% during game hours.
This is an early forecast on Thursday night and certainly could change, but not having a degree in meteorology, I don’t know how this will affect the game, if it even gets played at all.
The two factors combined (weather and park alternations) leave me far from confident in endorsing any kind of play on a total here, though the same forecasts call for winds in excess of 10 mph blowing out toward center or left, with temperatures in the low 70s.
With this forecast and the old park factors, I would project a total between 8.5 and 9.
Player props are also difficult to evaluate under these particular conditions, especially if we’re looking at a game that could be interrupted or end early.
Follow me on the app (Matt Trollo or RockyJade) in case anything changes.
Pick: Lean Brewers ML (+100 or Better)
