MLB Baseball Betting: Toronto Blue Jays at Oakland A’s
One thing about sports in general and baseball in particular is that things are never as easy as they look ‘on paper’. That’s what the Toronto Blue Jays are finding out in their weekend series against the Oakland A’s. With Oakland struggling all season and the Blue Jays red hot heading into the All Star Break it looked as if Toronto would make short work of their opponent in this series. It hasn’t worked out that way and Oakland has taken the first two games of this three game weekend set. The Blue Jays will try to salvage a game on Sunday. Toronto is still in good shape–despite their two losses in this series they’ve won 7 of 10. They’re 4 games back of the Baltimore Orioles and 2 games back of the second place Boston Red Sox. Oakland has pulled out of last place in the American League West and currently lead the Los Angeles Angels by 1.5 games. They’re 13.5 games behind the slumping Texas Rangers in first place, 9 games back of the second place Houston Astros and 6 games back of the third place Seattle Mariners.
A battle of lefthanders in this matchup as Toronto will send J.A. Happ to the mound. Happ’s numbers are solid though nothing special but it’s worked out well for the Jays when he takes the ball. Toronto has won 13 of his 18 starts this season including six straight. He’s got a 3.36 ERA on the year with a 1.202 WHIP. His road starts and L3 starts show comparable numbers. He’ll be opposed by Rich Hill who has become one of the surprise bright spots in the A’s rotation. He’s got a 2.25 ERA and 1.092 WHIP overall and Oakland has won 9 of his 13 starts. At home, he’s got a 3.45 ERA with Oakland losing 4 of his 6 assignments.
Many baseball handicappers love to ‘bet against the sweep’ and automatically bet against teams looking to complete a series sweep of an opponent. This looks like the perfect situation to make that work–with a superior team that lost the first two games of this series by a single run. Toronto has the better offense against lefthanders and Happ is the pitcher in better form.
BET TORONTO BLUE JAYS -105 OVER OAKLAND A’s
