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<\/a>New York heads West with the best record in baseball (50-31, +250) and winners of two of its last three games.\u00a0 Tonight\u2019s game is the first of a seven-game road trip, with the club currently 22-18 away from Yankee Stadium (-190).\u00a0 The Bronx Bombers are a dominating 33-17 against right-handed starters in 2010 (+780), averaging 5.7 runs and combining to bat .284 as a team.\u00a0 In those 50 games, New York is outscoring opponents by a run and a half (5.7 to 4.2).\u00a0 The Yankees are 14-4 against the Athletics since the start of the 2008 season.\u00a0 New York also brings an impressive 33-18 (.647) mark against them since 2004, marking the highest winning percentage over the stretch by any AL team.<\/p>\nYankees starting pitcher Javier Vazquez is 6-7 with a 5.11 ERA in 15 games (14 starts) this season.\u00a0 He will be making his 400th career start tonight, becoming the 120th pitcher in Major League history to reach that mark.\u00a0 He is 3-4 with a 5.76 ERA in eight road starts this season, allowing seven home runs in 45.1 innings.\u00a0 In eight career starts versus the Athletics, he stands at an even 3-3 wit ha 4.99 ERA.\u00a0 His third start of the season was against Oakland back on April 20, picking up a 7-3 win, allowing three earned runs and six hits over 5.1 innings.<\/p>\n
Oakland comes back to town after a successful 4-2 road trip against Baltimore and Cleveland, looking to capture its fourth straight victory at home.\u00a0 \u201cIt definitely gives us confidence heading into this week for the Yankees series,\u201d third baseman Adam Rosales said.\u00a0 The team has now won seven of their last eight games following a stretch in which they lost 10 of 12.\u00a0 The Athletics are 12-15 in the first game of the series and I\u2019m imagining they\u2019d rather have it played during the day than at night.\u00a0 The club brings a dismal 22-32 nighttime record into the contest (-1,070) and is an even 20-20 following a win (-130).<\/p>\n
Athletics starting pitcher Ben Sheets is 3-7 with a 4.98 ERA in 17 starts this season, with his team losing five of his last six starts.\u00a0 He picked up a 9-6 defeat in Baltimore last time out, surrendering four runs (three earned) and seven hits over six innings of work.\u00a0 Despite his inability to produce victories, the right-hander has managed to last at least six innings in 14 of 17 outings.\u00a0 Sheets has been solid at home, producing a winning 3-2 mark and 3.19 ERA in eight starts.\u00a0 In two lifetime outings against the Yankees, he is an even 1-1 with a 1.38 ERA, allowing just six hits over 13 innings.<\/p>\n
Bettors have a golden opportunity in playing a slight home underdog in this contest, as the Athletics are 24-16 at home this season (+730).\u00a0 This is strengthened in finding the Yankees 1-4 in Vazquez\u2019s last five starts as a road favorite of -110 to -150.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Athletics are the best home underdog on Monday’s card in a series opening game against the Yankees. New York Yankees at Oakland Athletics New York heads West with the best record in baseball (50-31, +250) and winners of two of its last three games.\u00a0 Tonight\u2019s game is the first of a seven-game road trip, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[1567,1746,149,1449],"class_list":["post-5288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-ben-sheets","tag-javier-vazquez","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-oakland-athletics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5288","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=5288"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5290,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5288\/revisions\/5290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/ben-sheets-athletics-838.jpg\")
<\/a>New York heads West with the best record in baseball (50-31, +250) and winners of two of its last three games.\u00a0 Tonight\u2019s game is the first of a seven-game road trip, with the club currently 22-18 away from Yankee Stadium (-190).\u00a0 The Bronx Bombers are a dominating 33-17 against right-handed starters in 2010 (+780), averaging 5.7 runs and combining to bat .284 as a team.\u00a0 In those 50 games, New York is outscoring opponents by a run and a half (5.7 to 4.2).\u00a0 The Yankees are 14-4 against the Athletics since the start of the 2008 season.\u00a0 New York also brings an impressive 33-18 (.647) mark against them since 2004, marking the highest winning percentage over the stretch by any AL team.<\/p>\n