Kazeka1886

Royals are very solid 27-19 while Athletics are way weaker 19-28. Royals will start Lugo who has been fantastic so far with 6-1 record and 1.66 ERA while Athletics will go with struggling Stripling who went 0-5 with 5.36 ERA last season and continued in that way this season going 1-7 with 4.98 ERA in 9 starts. Royals won 6 of their last 9 games while Athletics lost 11 of their last 13 games so got to expect Royals to have the pitching edge in this one and win in the end.

This is super hard 221.9 km long stage with 5467 m of total elevation finishing on 2380 m above sea level, so it should be the one for the best climbers. It all depends on the UAE and do they want to control for Pogacar stage win, but 222 km length will be hard to control and a strong break of climbers should go and create enough advantage for a stage win. Rubio is more than 9 minutes down in GC, so he will get the freedom to go for the break, and he showed how dangerous he can be from the break as he won last year's stage 13 of Giro to Crans-Montana from the break and as Colombian he surely won't mind finish on altitude so got to see very solid value backing him to win this stage from the break.

This is the hardest stage of the race and quite possibly the hardest stage all year long with almost 222 km to tackle and almost 5500 m of climbing in it, so it should be very selective day. It will hard to control such long stage so got to lean towards winner coming from the break. Hirt is one of the best climbers who is down almost 10 minutes on GC, so he surely will try to go from the break. He finished 2nd in two up sprint on mightily hard stage 16 in 2019 which had 5207 m of climbing in it losing out to Ciccone before he won similarly tough stage 16 in 2022 which had 5268 m of climbing, so this should be right up his alley making small Czech rider a great pick to contend for the win here.

Crystal Palace is in 12th place with 48 points while Aston Villa is in 4th place with 68 points. However, they are ending the season in very different form as Crystal Palace has been flying since Glasner took over being undefeated in last 6 games with 5 wins of which 4 wins came against teams placed in top 9 while Aston Villa is running on empty for a bit now as they paid the price playing on multiple fronts losing twice to Olympiacos in UEFA Conference League semifinals, but they managed to secure top 4 finish and their spot in Champions League next season even though they are winless in last 3 games with 1 loss and 2 draws. All in all Crystal Palace is on the up, and they will look to end the season with another strong performance in front of their fans while Aston Villa will have hard time matching that speed, skill and desire from home side as they will look towards their upcoming vacations which should see Crystal Palace finish the season with another win.

Straka has been playing well for a while now as he comes into this tournament with 4 finishes of T16 or better in his last 4 outings. He was T7 at this tournament a year ago and notably runner-up at The Open Championship and T16 at Augusta earlier this year as he has been showing up well in recent Majors. He won John Deere Classic last year and was runner-up at TPC Southwind which uses same zoysia grass like Valhalla this week so with his putter being rather warm lately and his all around game on point simply got to fancy him to play well again and be among the best European players.

DeChambeau has been playing well this year with 4 top 10 finishes on LIV Tour and his record in Majors is very strong having won US Open in 2020,finished T8 at The Open Championship in 2022, T4 twice here in 2020 and 2023 plus being T6 at The Masters earlier this year. He is big time player when it comes to big time tournament which at this price is definitely worth taking as Bryson showed he can take advantage with his big hitting and quite possibly be right in contention for big trophy once again.

Morikawa has been struggling this year, but then he found something at The Masters where he came in T3 and continued with solid displays finishing 9th at RBC Heritage, T23 at Zurich Classic of New Orleans alongside Kitayama before T16 last week at Wells Fargo Championship where he ruined even better result with poor final round of 74 playing final 3 holes 3 over par. However, he showed he can do well on these zoysia grass Valhalla features this week when he won ZOZO Championship late last year on same zoysia grass. He won this tournament back in 2020 and also has a win at The Open Championship in 2021 showing he shows up for Majors and then with up tick in his form simply got expect Morikawa near his best which should see him contend for the win.

Homa earned his first top 10 finish in Major late last year at The Open Championship where he finished in exactly T10, and he followed that up with 1 win and 11 more top 16 finishes in his next 17 starts which includes T3 in last Major at The Masters where he led heading into the weekend. He is coming off very decent T8 at Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow last week where he won back in 2019 as he has a lot of great results on similar old style, classical golf courses so got to expect him to go well here at Valhalla and quite possibly contend for the victory come Sunday afternoon.

Straka has been in really nice nick of form lately, and he has been doing well in Majors recently having finished T7 at this event a year ago and followed that up with runner-up finish at The Open Championship and solid T16 at The Masters. He followed up that showing at Augusta with T5 at RBC Heritage where he led after 36 holes and was 2nd heading into Sunday before T11 at Zurich Classic of New Orleans where he was paired with Garnett before another solid showing last week at Wells Fargo Championship where he finished as T8 after weaker final round of 74. He was also runner-up at TPC Southwind last year which uses zoysia grass same as this week Valhalla does so got to feel like Straka will know his way around here and quite possibly could be right in the mix on Sunday afternoon.

Storer is breakaway expert and an excellent climber which sees him pick up a lot of points for King of the Mountains competition. He makes breaks regularly and being on Tudor Pro Cycling Team, he will have the freedom to do so and he will surely pick and choose stages with most valuable points in fight for maglia azzura. UAE doesn't seem to have strong enough of a team to control enough stages for Pogacar to take more mountain stages and as a result this competition as well so got to feel like riders like Storer will look towards blue jersey as a goal in this Giro and then with this price on offer it makes sense going with Aussie to contend for it.