{"id":16659,"date":"2011-07-27T12:35:28","date_gmt":"2011-07-27T17:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=16659"},"modified":"2011-07-27T12:35:28","modified_gmt":"2011-07-27T17:35:28","slug":"rays-look-to-avoid-third-straight-loss-to-oakland-as","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/rays-look-to-avoid-third-straight-loss-to-oakland-as-16659\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays Look To Avoid Third Straight Loss To Oakland A’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tampa Bay Rays AT Oakland A’s<\/strong>
\nJuly 27, 2011 at 10:05 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 TAM -124, OAK +114<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 TAM -128, OAK +118<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 6.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 6.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

SP:\u00a0 TAM- James Shields, OAK- Trevor Cahill<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Evan Longoria still has yet to find the groove, and is hitting .238 on the season<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The A’s have dominated the first two games of this series, outscoring the Rays 13 to 6 over both games.\u00a0 Last night, they came out ahead 6-1.\u00a0 Conor Jackson, hyped in my preview last time, came through, going 3 of 4, but he did leave two on base.\u00a0 It was enough, as Kurt Suzuki drove in two runs and Weeks, Matsui, and Pennington drove in one a piece.<\/p>\n

No one had a particularly strong game for the Rays, who managed only seven hits.\u00a0 Matt Joyce and Casey Kotchman did go 2 of 4, but Upton did not get a hit and neither did Desmond Jennings.\u00a0 David Price allowed 7 hits and 4 earned runs, as his ERA inflated to 3.76 ER on the year.\u00a0 Brandon McCarthy picked up the win for the A’s, improving to 3-5 on the year with an ERA actually superior to his opponent (Price) at 3.53 ER.<\/p>\n

Since the All-Star break, the A’s are hitting .308 from the plate while averaging 5.4 runs per game.<\/p>\n

Cliff Pennington, in fact, has got things together in a big way.\u00a0 His batting average has increased 0.29 since the All-Star break, as he has went 18 of 36 with 8 RBIs over 11 games.<\/p>\n

“You’re seeing a confident player…” Bob Melvin assessed.<\/p>\n

As mentioned in last night’s preview, a loss by Tampa Bay puts them in a bleak position with regards to making the playoffs, now 10.5 games behind division leading Boston.\u00a0 They are also 8.5 games behind second place New York.<\/p>\n

In desperation perhaps, Tampa will look to win at any cost tonight, even if it means a lot of innings pitched by starter James Shields.\u00a0 Shields is 9-8 on the season with an outstanding 2.53 ERA, and has won more games than he’s lost with almost no run support (2.8 runs per game, the third lowest in the majors).\u00a0 Shields is only 9-5 when giving up 3 runs or fewer, only further illustrating the pointlessness of the win-loss record as a measure of quality pitching.<\/p>\n

Trevor Cahill will take the mound for the A’s.\u00a0 He’s 8-9 with a 3.77 ERA, but suffered badly in his last appearance, when he allowed 10 runs and 9 hits in 2 innings against the Yankees.\u00a0 The A’s have also lost 12 of his last 14 starts, and his ERA over that span is over 5.00.\u00a0 He hasn’t made it out of the third inning in his last three appearances against the Rays.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay is 1-4 SU in their last 5 games and 1-6 SU in their last 7 on the road.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 4 of the Rays’ last 5 games against the A’s, while the Rays are 2-6 SU in their last 8 against Oakland.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER In 4 of the Rays’ last 5 games on the road against the A’s, and the Rays are 2-6 SU in their last 8 games on the road in Oakland.<\/p>\n

The total has gone OVER In 7 of the A’s last 8 games and they are 4-2 SU over their last 6.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 4 of their last 6 at home and they are 6-1 SU in their last 7 games at home.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER In 4 of their last 5 against the Rays and the A’s are 6-2 SU in their last 8 games against Tampa Bay.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER In 4 of the A’s last 5 games at home against TB, while the A’s are 6-2 SU in their last 8 home games against the Rays.<\/p>\n

Given the fact that Cahill has been absolutely miserable against Tampa Bay, I fully expect the Rays to get off early on and run up the total past the 6.5 runs.\u00a0 It might be a detiorative effect for the A’s pen once the Rays get hot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tampa Bay Rays AT Oakland A’s July 27, 2011 at 10:05 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 TAM -124, OAK +114 Current Line:\u00a0 TAM -128, OAK +118 Opening Total: 6.5 Current Total:\u00a0 6.5 SP:\u00a0 TAM- James Shields, OAK- Trevor Cahill The A’s have dominated the first two games of this series, outscoring the Rays 13 to 6 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":4785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[86,4781,150,1806],"class_list":["post-16659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-james-shields","tag-oakland-as","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-trevor-cahill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16660,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16659\/revisions\/16660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}