The Royals are headed for another losing season – this will be their eighth in a row and 19th in the past 20 years. The pitching rotation has lost its 3-4-5 men (Sean O’Sullivan, Bruce Chen and Kyle Davies) to injury, but Felipe Paulino has ridden to the rescue with three earned runs in 21 innings of work since the Colorado Rockies cut him loose last month.

Paulino (1.37 WHIP, 3.79 ERA) might not be a fluke, either. The 27-year-old righty has a 5.53 career ERA, most of that in two seasons with the Houston Astros, but his 4.11 career xFIP (adjusted Fielding Independent Pitching) is promising, and Paulino’s got a 95-mph fastball with a nice slider. Pretty good for the scrap heap.

Not everybody can be Chris Carpenter (1.39 WHIP, 4.47 ERA). But the 2005 NL Cy Young winner doesn’t have much betting value for the Cardinals, who are 4-10 in his 14 starts for a deficit of 10.19 units. Only Colorado’s Ubaldo Jimenez (–13.17 units) has fared worse this year. Carpenter blows up every once in while, but he has eight quality starts and is getting just 3.71 runs of support per game. He took a 3-0 loss against Jeff Francis and the Royals last month as a –124 road dog. We’ll see if he gets out-pitched by Paulino this time. First pitch is at 8:15 p.m. Eastern.

Get all your MLB odds at Bodog.