MLB Baseball Betting: Los Angeles Angels at Oakland Athletics

By BetOnline September 4, 2019

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The Oakland Athletics took the first game of a three game set against the Los Angeles Angels on Tuesday night and with the victory have moved into a tie with the Cleveland Indians for the American League’s final wild card spot. Both teams remain one game back of Tampa Bay for the top wild card spot and 5.5 games up on the Boston Red Sox. Barring something strange happening the rest of the teams in the league from Texas (12.5 games out) on down will not be a factor. For what it’s worth, the Angels are 15 games out but are in miserable form having lost 8 of their last 10 games.

Like the old saying goes ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’. Apropos of that, we’ll come right back with the Oakland Athletics today. They’ve made +16.7 units overall on the year with most of the profit made at RingCentral Coliseum where Oakland is 44-24 +15.2 units. The Halos have been a serious money burner all season long and in all settings (-16.3 units) and are 30-42 -7.8 units on the road. They’ve now dropped 8 of 10 and 9 of their last 11 games (-7.55 units) and have been manhandled my the A’s in head to head play losing 10 of 14 (-5.0 units).

Angels’ lefthander Patrick Sandoval is definitely a work in progress at 22 years old. He’s got nice velocity on his four seam fastball but clearly has work to do before he can consistently shut down Major League hitters. He’s coming off the best start of his young career at home against Texas on August 28. He went 5 innings allowing just 1 hit and 0 ER while striking out 9 and walking 3. Of course he got no help from his teammates and the Halos ended up losing a 3-0 decision. In four games this year he’s got a 5.71 ERA with LA losing 3 of the 4 starts. On the road, he’s got a bloated 9.00 ERA averaging just 4 innings per start.

Oakland will go with the very solid and consistent Tanner Roark. Roark has pitched well since being acquired by Oakland with a 3.30 ERA in five starts. He’s good for 6 to 7 innings of solid work every time he takes the mound and that’s invaluable for any team looking to play in October. Angels have lost money against right handed pitchers this year (46-45 -2.6 units) and for whatever reason have dropped a ton in night games (46-54 -14.8 units). They’ve also been smacked around by their AL West rivals going 27-38 -15 units.

Oakland has a good opportunity to pick up some ground in the wild card in this series and in three forthcoming home games against hapless Detroit before they take to the road to face the powerful Astros. A’s have pounded left handers this year going 42-12 +12 units averaging 5.4 runs per game. We’ll ride the Athletics throughout their current home stand.