The Oakland Athletics and the Los Angeles Angels will begin a four-game series on Thursday night. It's time to continue our MLB odds series and make an Athletics-Angels prediction and pick.
This is an important series for both of these AL West rivals. The Athletics are currently sitting six games behind the Houston Astros for the division lead, while the Angels are 11 games out of first place. It's hard to see Los Angeles catching the Astros, but there's still plenty of games left in the season. The Athletics have a much better chance of making the playoffs, but they need to win games like this one. Regardless of playoff aspirations from either side, this showdown should be an entertaining one.
Here's how the bookmakers have set the odds for Thursday night's matchup.
MLB Odds: Athletics-Angels Odds
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Oakland Athletics ML (-130)
Los Angeles Angels ML (+110)
Over 9 runs (-115)
Under 9 runs (-105)
Why The Athletics Could Cover The Spread
Unsurprisingly, the Athletics will lean on their starting pitching in this matchup. Oakland will entrust the start to pitcher Frankie Montas on Thursday night.
Montas has been decent for the Athletics this season, posting a 4.34 ERA and a 1.28 WHIP. Those numbers get a little bit better when Montas pitches on the road, as he's earned a 4.29 ERA and a 1.19 WHIP when playing away from the Oakland Coliseum. Another stat helping Montas is the fact that the Angels are slightly worse when they have to face right-handed pitching. Los Angeles sees a drop in OBP, OPS, and batting average whenever they play a righty as opposed to a lefty.
The Angels are slated to start pitcher Dylan Bundy in this one. Los Angeles has used Bundy as a starter and as a reliever, but the results have been horrible no matter what his role is. Bundy has pitched to the tune of a 6.69 ERA and a 1.41 WHIP. It's hard to believe, but his numbers get even worse in his last seven appearances. Over that span, Bundy has allowed a 9.00 ERA and a 1.92 WHIP. The Athletics shouldn't have any trouble putting up a plethora of runs on Bundy.
Why The Angels Could Cover The Spread
The Angels' specialty all season long has been the offense. They rank inside the top five in the MLB in batting average, slugging percentage, and OPS. Los Angeles is also a significantly better offense when they play at home, seeing a boost to their batting average, OBP, and slugging percentage when playing in Angel Stadium. This lineup is a lot for any pitcher to handle, so Montas should have a pretty tough time getting through it.
Montas has a tendency to allow hard-hit balls in his starts. He has a barrel percentage of 9.9%, which is on the higher end. He also allows a hard-hit percentage of 45.4% to pair with an average exit velocity of 90.4. Both of those numbers are high for a starting pitcher. All of these stats combine to show that the Angels should be able to destroy the baseball against Montas.
Final Athletics-Angels Prediction & Pick
The over should be much higher, so this is the perfect opportunity to capitalize on that. The Athletics should be able to tee off on Bundy early in the game, and Montas has a tendency to allow a decent amount of home runs. With two solid offenses and statistical reasons to believe they will both perform well, the over is a slam-dunk pick.
FINAL PICK: Over 9 runs (-115)
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