The 1st place Dodgers will look to avoid the sweep against the Oakland Athletics Thursday afternoon. LA has dropped the first two games, 3-0 and 4-1, but today they will send their stopper and ace to the mound with hopes that Clayton Kershaw can pull the team through.
MLB odds makers have
opened LA as a -154 favorite, but early baseball betting action has forced the
line down to -140 at some shops. The OVER/UNDER has been set at 6.5.
Why is the Dodgers
line crashing.
As we mentioned
before, online baseball betting shops are seeing a large amount of money coming
in on Oakland. This is surprising when you consider that the Dodgers are
sending Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw to the hill.
The thing is that Oakland
is on a tear right now, and their bats have fared well against pitchers of
varying calibers. They have won 7 of their last 8 to pull themselves into 3rd
place in the AL West, and over their last 10 games, Oakland has tallied 56 runs combined. They are hitting from top to bottom in the lineup, swiping bags,
getting runs over and driving them in. The offense is firing on all cylinders
while they have been getting terrific starting pitching.
The Dodgers lineup is
starting to miss Matt Kemp
With Andre Ethier in
a major slump (just 9 for his last 53 overall in his last 16 games) as his
average has dipped all the way from .326 to .286. This has absolutely killed
the Dodgers offense. In their last 4 games they have managed to score just more
than 3 runs once, and in their last 7 they have put up just a horrible 23 runs combined.
They have been just brutal against LHP, which is significant being that Oakland
is sending a lefty to the mound today.
In the last 10 games
LA owns a batting average of just .204, OBP of .264 while managing just barely
3 runs per nine innings against LHP. Quite frankly this has been a long time
coming, and without Matt Kemp, and with Andre Ethier in a slump the Dodgers have
no real threats in their lineup.
A’s look to Travis
Blackley.
On the year Blackley
owns a 3.76 ERA, 1.25 WHIP and has just 19 Ks to 10 BB in 31 IP, clearly
pitches to contact. It’s worked out well for Blackley though, He's only given
up more than 3 runs once all season, and that was against the Rangers line up
where they put up a 5 spot on him. Under the surface the numbers suggest
Blackley may be even better than his 3.76 ERA. He owns an FIP of 3.22 and has
been burned by a 56% strand rate which is crazy, being that many runners have
crossed the plate and his ERA is still so low. He owns a great ground ball profile
of 48%, a great LD % of just 17 percent and a very good HR/FB ratio of 2.8%,
being that he has only served up 1 deep ball on the year.
Now with these type
of numbers you would think Blackley is the second coming of Clayton Kershaw,
but he is far from that. His numbers will surely rise but they will hold up
just fine today against a Dodgers lineup that can't buy a run against LHP. Even
though Oakland is red hot, Clayton Kershaw is just that good and will be able
to shut this team down, especially is this spacious ball park.
The Dodgers will be
looking to avoid the sweep and have just the man up there in Clayton Kershaw to get the
job done. Over his career he is been an excellent at putting stops to Dodger
losing streaks, but that is not nearly enough to put our money on LA. We are
just fine backing the UNDER here as Kershaw will come out with a bulldog
mentality shutting down the Oakland lineup, while the Dodgers lineup will
continue their struggles against LHP. Whoever scores 1st in the game probably
comes away with the victory.
We will be playing
the UNDER at 6.5 as this looks to be another game where runs are going to be
very hard to come by, especially on a getaway day.
Dodgers Oakland UNDER
6.5 is our MLB pick of the Day.
Our overall record is
41-37 on the year. Good luck everybody.