New York at Oakland
Tuesday, May 31st, 10:05 PM
(matchup)
After shutting out Trevor Cahill and Oakland on Memorial Day, the New York Yankees will look to continue their recent dominance over the A’s Tuesday night. Those making
baseball picks have seen the Yankees go 17-3 vs. the Athletics in head to head play the last three seasons and that includes 8-2 here in Oakland.
New York has again opened as a small underdog on the MLB betting line here. This is the fourth time in five games that the Yankees will be the underdog, a rarity, and possible proof that they’ve lost the respect of the public. Prior to yesterday’s win, they had gone 0-2 over the previous week as an underdog, losing twice to Seattle. For the season, the Yanks have shown a slight profit when priced as a dog, going 5-5 overall.
Handicapping the starting pitching is always a key factor in making
baseball picks. With the exception of CC Sabathia, New York lacks any truly great starters, which is another reason the betting lines have been so uncharacteristically low. Tonight, they will send out Freddie Garcia, who is 3-4 in eight starts, but has pitched well with a 3.14 ERA. After losing four of his previous five decisions, Garcia finally got back in the win column in his last start, throwing seven solid innings in a 7-3 win over Toronto as a -155 favorite. This will be Garcia’s first road start in nearly a month.
Yesterday’s series opener between the teams saw a strong pitching performance from Yankees starter Bartolo Colon, who continued his renaissance in a 5-0 shutout victory. Colon issued no walks, struck out six and allowed only four hits in a 103-pitch complete game effort. The loss snapped a four-game win streak for Oakland.
The A’s will be look for a strong pitching performance from their starter, Brett Anderson, tonight. Like Garcia for the Yankees, the lefty has pitched very well this season in spite of a pedestrian record. Anderson has posted a 1.83 ERA his last three starts, which includes eight innings of shutout, three-hit ball vs. the Angels last time out as a -115 road favorite.
One concern for Anderson though has to be his past results vs. the Yankees. Oakland has lost all four times he’s started against them with the southpaw posting an uncharacteristically high 4.68 ERA.
While handicapping the starting pitching is important, so too is analyzing the offensive numbers when making
baseball picks. The Yankees have a major edge offensively in this matchup as they are scoring 5.7 runs per game on the road compared to Oakland’s season number of 3.6.
