The Oakland Athletics find themselves in second place in the Wild Card standings in the American League, while the Los Angeles Angels have some ground to make up to catch them. In this American League West showdown, Shohei Ohtani and the Angels will look to take a crucial step toward getting closer to the A’s. But Oakland is coming off of one of their best performances of the season, and it will be no easy hurdle to clear.
A’s Looking For Another Offensive Outburst
The Oakland Athletics set the tone from the start against the San Diego Padres in their Wednesday afternoon matchup, scoring four runs in the first inning en route to a 10-4 win. The A’s led the game from wire to wire and got impressive performances from their bats as well as from starting pitcher Sean Manaea, whose first five innings were perfect. Oakland snapped a four-game losing streak with Wednesday’s win, and they will look to build a winning streak with this contest.
In order to do that, the A’s will hope that their pitching staff is as effective against the Angels as it was in their last two-game series. Just over a week ago, Oakland took two straight from the Angels thanks to their pitching staff allowing just one run across those two games. Frankie Montas is 8-8 on the season and will be tasked with trying to replicate that performance against the Angels this time around.
Angels Running Out of Time
The Los Angeles Angels have been playing some solid baseball of late, but solid baseball might not be good enough to get them back into the playoff hunt at this point in the season. Instead, the Angels need to string together consecutive wins on a regular basis to avoid being too far behind as the final two months of the season beckon. And while Shohei Ohtani is doing his part, the rest of the Angels need to join him.
Ohtani comes into this series against the Athletics, having hit home runs in back-to-back games against the Colorado Rockies. His three-run home run on Wednesday turned a 3-1 deficit into a 4-3 lead on what was Ohtani’s 37th home run of the season. But with Mike Trout still out of the lineup, Ohtani is going to need some of the other bats in the Angels lineup to step up to avoid his production being all for naught.
A’s vs. Angels Pick: Angels -1.5 over Athletics
The big advantage for the Angels in this game, aside from Shohei Ohtani being on the Angels’ roster, comes in the form of Alex Cobb starting this game. Cobb has been far superior to the aforementioned Montas this season, going 7-3 with a sub-4.00 ERA on the season and just three home runs allowed on the year. With so much on the line for the Angels and time running out for them to get back into playoff contention, expect their bats to awaken and for Cobb to give them enough on the bump to win in a letdown spot for the A’s.
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