Tuesday MLB Best Bet: Orioles vs. Athletics

Written by Jake Thompson
Tuesday, 16 August 2011 04:24

We are going for 17 MLB best bet wins in a row in Tuesday’s game between the Athletics and the Orioles.

After an easy win with our MLB best bet for Monday, we are going for another big score in Tuesday’s game between the Oakland Athletics (53-67) and the Baltimore Orioles (46-72).  A victory here would push our MLB best record to 17 straight and online sportsbooks have the home-team Athletics as -136 favorites with a total of 8 runs.  MLB bet-tracking websites show that close to 65% of bettors are taking Oakland and we’ll let you know if they are going to be on the correct team.

The Orioles have a horrid 17-37 record on the road this season and have won only 14 of their last 51 games when traveling to play the Athletics.  Baltimore will be without newly acquired first baseman Chris Davis (.241, 4 HRs) because of a shoulder injury, and are still playing without designated hitter Luke Scott (shoulder) and Brian Roberts (head).  The Athletics should welcome back shortstop Cliff Pennington (.256, 5 HRs) after he took a day off to rest, while left fielder Conor Jackson (.264, 4 HRs) is listed as questionable with a sore neck.

Oakland will go with Guillermo Moscoso (5-6, 1.25 WHIP, 3.52 ERA) as their starting pitcher, and the right-handed former prospect has looked good this season.  He’s a power pitcher with decent movement and looks to be finally realizing some of the potential he had before losing his command last year.  The Orioles are hitting just .239 over their last 10 games and Moscoso has allowed 6 earned runs over 10.0 innings against Baltimore this season.

Oakland is also hitting poorly of late (.235 over their last 10 games) and will be trying to improve that statistic against left-hander Brian Matusz (1-4, 1.99 WHIP, 8.77 ERA).  Matusz is a prospect that just hasn’t put it together yet, and the southpaw has allowed 14 earned runs over 4 starts in his career against the Athletics.  Much of the youngster's problems this year have had to do with a loss of velocity on his fastball, and Matusz has reportedly regained some miles per hour after a little over a month in the minors.

Our Tuesday MLB best bet in the Orioles vs. Athletics game will be on the total going under 8 runs.  Although Baltimore has a poor bullpen (1.51 WHIP, 4.41 ERA) and Oakland’s isn’t dominant (1.29 WHIP, 3.33 ERA), I expect the large dimensions of this ballpark to help out the pitching quite a bit.  These squads aren’t hitting and both starting pitchers have the ability to dominate when they are on.  Look for a low-scoring game and we’ll just have to cross our fingers that the bullpens don’t give up a ton of late runs.

Orioles 2

Athletics 3