MLB Betting Free Picks: Oakland @ Texas

Added on May 13, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

Slim pickings on sportsbooks boards for Thursday with 8 baseball games and 1 NBA contest. We’ll take a look at an online betting opportunity in the American League as the Texas Rangers host the Oakland A’s. These teams are battling for the lead in the AL West, with the Rangers currently in first by one game. This is a daytime start, with action getting underway at 2:05 PM Eastern/11:05 AM Pacific.

Oakland A’s (Sheets) at Texas Rangers (Wilson)
May 13, 11:05 AM Pacific

These teams have very similar records in the early going, though they’ve gone about it in decidedly different ways. Texas specializes in scoring runs, Oakland is a team built around defense. They’ve split the first two games of this series, and Oakland won 2 of 3 from the Rangers at home earlier this season. Ben Sheets’ YTD numbers look awful, with a 6.38 ERA but he’s off of a very solid start against Tampa Bay where he held the Rays to 2 ER on 4 hits. CJ Wilson has been very good this year, with a 1.73 ERA. He’s only allowed 4 ER in his last 3 games though they were against a trio of light hitting teams (Seattle, Kansas City, Chicago WS).

Basically, we’re looking at a value based position on Oakland. They made money against Texas in 2009 (11-8 +5.7 units) and so far this season (3-2 +1.6 units). There’s also a strange situational advantage for the Athletics at play–for whatever reason, they’ve been dominant in day games this year. They’re 10-3 +7.8 units in day games, and batting average in these games is 20 points higher than their overall average. They’re also 3-0 +3.6 units against southpaws in day games averaging 5.7 runs per contest. The disparity in the starting pitchers’ YTD form notwithstanding this is a close matchup, and if there’s something to Oakland’s YTD daytime performance that works in our favor as well.

Bet Oakland (Sheets) +155 over Texas (Wilson)