Tuesday MLB Best Bet: Royals vs. Athletics

Written by Jake Thompson
Tuesday, 14 June 2011 16:57

Tuesday’s MLB best bet will be in a late game between the Royals and the Athletics.

We’ll try to win our 4th best bet in our last 5 tries in the game between the Kansas City Royals (29-37) and the Oakland Athletics (28-39).  The 10:05 PM ET clash has sports bettors split on which side to take, while online sportsbooks have established the home-team Athletics as large -165 betting favorites.  Although the Royals have been a nice surprise and the Athletics a nice disappointment, Kansas City’s 8-17 record on the road doesn’t really inspire much confidence in tonight’s underdogs.

Kansas City has won just 2 of their last 8 games in Oakland, but the Athletics come into this clash as winners in just 1 of their last 10 overall games this season.  Although pitching has also been bad for Oakland during this losing streak, their pitiful .225 average over that span just isn’t giving them any chances to win games.  The good news is that Oakland has hit .259 against lefties during the skid, and this team has simply been better against southpaws all season long.  Kansas City will start left-hander Daniel Duffy (0-2, 1.89 WHIP, 5.55 ERA) tonight and it appears that Oakland might actually score a few runs.  Duffy is good at battling out of bad spots, but he simply puts too many guys on base to have a dominant effort against anyone.

The Athletics will counter with Trevor Cahill (6-4, 1.32 WHIP, 3.18 ERA), and the right-hander will be going up against a Kansas City squad that is hitting .264 over their last 10 games.  The Royals have had decent offensive production all season long, but have also scored just 5 earned runs in 3 career starts against Cahill in Oakland; all resulting in victories for the Athletics.  Concerning for Cahill is that he’s been having problems with his mechanics lately, but I still think he’s good enough at Oakland Coliseum to have a strong outing here.

Oakland has a nice edge when it comes to relief pitching, and I have to figure that Cahill’s recent struggles (8.27 ERA over his last 3 starts) will be figured out.  Those games were against heavy-hitting teams in the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, and Chicago White Sox, so I’m sure Cahill is happy to be at home against a weaker hitting bunch.  I’m not usually a fan of betting on this high of a favorite, but I believe that Oakland will score early and often against Duffy, while Cahill puts in 7 productive innings despite the worries about his delivery.  Another option would be to bet on the over, which is currently set at 7.5 runs.

Royals 3

Athletics 6