Cleveland at Oakland
Tuesday, May 3rd, 10:05 PM
(matchup)
With 13 straight home victories and six straight wins overall, the Cleveland Indians are the hottest team in baseball betting. They own MLB's best overall record and have already made their backers a whopping 13.2 units of profit so far. Tuesday night finds the club embarking on just its second West Coast swing of the season as they visit a place where they have not had much success of late, Oakland, where they are just 1-6 vs. the A's. The pitching matchup finds Fausto Carmona taking on Tyson Ross.
Oddsmakers have opened the teams virtually even on the money line despite Cleveland's superior record. While the Tribe had Monday off, Oakland was able to pick up a 5-4 extra-inning victory over Texas in the afternoon, improving its daytime record to 9-3 this season. Unfortunately for Athletics' fans, that also means their team is just 6-11 in night games this season.
Oakland took three of four over the weekend from Texas to pull itself above .500. It was a Hideki Matsui home run in the 10th that brought home the victory yesterday for the A's as a small favorite. One statistic to keep an eye on is that the A's are tied for the most errors in MLB with 27.
Cleveland, meanwhile, swept both series in its recent six-game home stand. In the more recent three-game set vs. the Tigers, they won every game in their final at-bat. They were far more dominant against Kansas City, outscoring the Royals 24-8 in the three games. Incredibly, the Indians already have posted more series sweeps this season (5) than they did all of last year (4), which was a 90+ loss campaign.
Fausto Carmona gets the baseball for Cleveland here and he's arguably been their most inconsistent starter to date. In six starts, he's posted a 5.15 ERA, despite having allowed two earned runs or fewer in four of those outings. Obviously, he has been hit hard twice, including in his last road start at Minnesota where he allowed six runs and seven hits in just five innings of work. Carmona does have a 26-10 team start record when pitching and the Indians are off consecutive victories.
The Indians have lost six of Carmona's nine career starts vs. the A's. The righty is also a perfect 8-0 Under vs. AL West opponents the last two seasons. That trend may very well continue tonight considering the opponent's 2.9 runs per game scoring average vs. righties this season.
Oakland counters with Tyson Ross, who has pitched well despite a pedestrian 1-2 overall record. He has started twice so far since filling in for the injured Dallas Braden in the A's rotation. Last time out, he threw seven innings of shutout ball vs. the Angels, but did not receive a decision in the team's 2-1 victory.
