{"id":24496,"date":"2012-08-24T11:45:20","date_gmt":"2012-08-24T16:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=24496"},"modified":"2012-08-24T10:40:17","modified_gmt":"2012-08-24T15:40:17","slug":"mlb-picks-2012-oakland-athletics-vs-tampa-bay-rays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/mlb-picks-2012-oakland-athletics-vs-tampa-bay-rays-24496\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB Picks 2012: Oakland Athletics vs. Tampa Bay Rays"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Oakland Athletics (67-57) and Tampa Bay Rays (70-55) will continue their three-game American League series on Friday night at Tropicana Field, with the first pitch scheduled for 7:10 ET<\/p>\n

Oakland Athletics at Tampa Bay Rays<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Tampa Bay Rays are making a run at the New York Yankees in the AL East division<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oakland is part of a three-way tie for the AL\u2019s second wild-card spot, but the club suffered a 5-0 series-opening loss to Tampa Bay on Thursday night.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t see us as a team that\u2019s been shut out that many times,\u201d commented Athletics manager Bob Melvin.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s more surprising than early in the year, when we had a string of them.\u201d\u00a0 The Athletics managed just four hits in getting blanked for a major league-leading 15th time.\u00a0 Oakland is 5-5 as a road underdog of +150 to +175 this season, with the \u201cunder\u201d going 5-4 in those contests.<\/p>\n

Athletics starting pitcher Jarrod Parker (8-7, 3.48 ERA) snapped a personal three-game losing streak in earning an 8-0 home victory over the Cleveland Indians, allowing six hits over eight shutout frames.\u00a0 The right-hander is 4-3 with a 5.11 ERA in nine road efforts, surrendering four home runs in 49.1 innings.\u00a0 Parker suffered a 4-1 home loss to the Rays in his only career start against them on Aug. 1, giving up three runs and eight hits over six innings.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay is the hottest team in baseball due to winning 14 of its last 17 games, which has moved the squad within 2.5 games of the AL East-leading New York Yankees.\u00a0 The Rays are starting to feel better about putting Evan Longoria back on the field, as he made his second start at third base since returning from the disabled list on Aug. 7.\u00a0 The pitching staff has been brilliant over the last 12 games, posting a 1.90 ERA in that span.\u00a0 Tampa Bay is 21-9 versus AL West teams this year.<\/p>\n

Rays starting pitcher Matt Moore (10-7, 3.57 ERA) has won four straight decisions, including an 8-3 road win over the Los Angeles Angels last time out, giving up two runs and five hits over 6.1 innings.\u00a0 The left-hander is 7-4 with a 3.23 ERA in 14 home starts, issuing 34 walks and striking out 80 batters in 83.2 frames.\u00a0 Moore was handed a 9-5 setback at home in his only career start versus the Athletics on May 6.<\/p>\n

Sports bettors will likely play the total in this contest, as the OVER has gone 7-2-1 in the Athletics last 10 road games versus southpaw starters.<\/p>\n

Make sure to check out our Major League Baseball picks<\/a> all season long and get the most up-to-date betting odds at Bookmaker<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Oakland Athletics (67-57) and Tampa Bay Rays (70-55) will continue their three-game American League series on Friday night at Tropicana Field, with the first pitch scheduled for 7:10 ET Oakland Athletics at Tampa Bay Rays Oakland is part of a three-way tie for the AL\u2019s second wild-card spot, but the club suffered a 5-0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[151,1981,6913,3006,1449,150,1574],"class_list":["post-24496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-american-league","tag-evan-longoria","tag-jarrod-parker","tag-matt-moore","tag-oakland-athletics","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tropicana-field"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24496","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\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24497,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24496\/revisions\/24497"}],"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=24496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}