Unless you think either the New York Yankees or Houston Astros are at risk of losing their playoff spot, in the American League, the push for the postseason essentially boils down to the Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics, meaning their three-game series this week has huge playoff implications. Though these are two teams headed in—seemingly—opposite directions, this series could serve as a major momentum shift for either team. Seattle needs a series win more than the A’s, but Oakland could distance themselves in the Wild Card race with a series sweep.
First pitch for the series opener between the Mariners and Athletics is scheduled for Monday, August 13, 2018, at 10:05 p.m. ET at the Oakland Alameda Coliseum. The following two games of this series will be on Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon. All three games of this series will be broadcast locally.
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Odds Analysis
It’s hard to ignore the run that the A’s are on right now. They’re arguably the hottest team in baseball and have flipped a double-digit game deficit in the AL Wild Card into a couple game lead in a very short time.
Really, since June 16, Oakland has been one of the game’s best teams. The A’s are 35-12 in that time and more recently are 8-2 over their last 10 games. The A’s are combining strong pitching with clutch hitting and good defense.
Matt Chapman has been one of the cornerstones in the offensive and defensive success. Getting comparisons to Nolan Arenado, Chapman is finally starting to get some of the accolades he deserves. The third baseman has gotten to every ball near him defensively and is batting .274/.362/.500 with 16 bombs, 23 doubles and six triples. More recently, he’s got a .344 average with a 1.110 OPS and six homers in his last 23 games.
In that same timeframe, Khris Davis has been raking, too. His average isn’t as high, but he’s belted 13 home runs and now has 34 on the season to go along with his 92 RBIs. With a 144 OPS+, Davis is one of eight active A’s with an OPS+ of at least 111. From Chad Pinder to Nick Martini to Jed Lowrie and even Mark Canha, Oakland is getting great production from unexpected places, giving players a chance to succeed and watching them blossom.
Really, what is going on now in Oakland is like what we were seeing earlier in the year in Seattle though Oakland is doing it with a much more sustainable run differential whereas, the Mariners were winning so many one-run games earlier that their luck was bound to run out.
Still, the one-run victories did highlight a strong bullpen along with a clutch offense, able to get the big hit.
Unfortunately for the Mariners, some key offensive forces have run dry. Since the All-Star break, the Mariners have scored 83 runs, the fourth fewest in the AL. and have a team OPS of .705. The A’s, in that same time, have scored 104 runs with a .806 OPS.
Seattle’s offensive slowdown can be traced to Kyle Seager, Ryon Healy and Jean Segura all hitting just over the Mendoza Line. Segura, however, is the only Seattle All-Star to slump since the break, Mitch Haniger is hitting a bit better, but has seen his homer and RBI production plummet, leaving Nelson Cruz and Mike Zunino as the biggest offensive threats.
Robinson Cano returns to the team on Tuesday and will hope to add a spark. The Mariners went on their run after Cano was suspended so it’ll be interesting to see how his return impacts the team chemistry as well as the production on the field as he’s likely to take at bats from Healy and Seager primarily.
Probable Pitchers
The series kicks off on Monday with Marco Gonzales on the mound for the Mariners against Sean Manaea for the A’s in a battle of talented, young southpaws.
For the Mariners, Gonzales has been their most valuable pitcher not named Edwin Diaz or James Paxton; the latter of which starts the second game of this series.
Gonzales is having a great season in the great Northwest but had dropped his last two starts after a five-game winning streak. His last outing was rough as he allowed seven runs and 12 hits against the Rangers in five frames. He’ll need to bounce back from that on Monday. The good news for the 26-year old southpaw is he did hold the A’s scoreless in seven innings when he last faced them back in May, giving up just two hits.
Overall this season, Gonzales is 12-7 with a 3.79 ERA and 1.199 WHIP in 137.2 innings of work spread over 23 starts. He’s got a 3.58 FIP as he’s been able to get key strikeouts when needed, but more importantly has been very good at forcing the opposition to work their way on. He’s only walked 25 batters and has allowed just 16 homers. He’s making the opposition work to get on and work to get batters in, not just allowing them to homer their way to victory.
As for Manaea, the southpaw is the ace of the A’s piece-meal rotation, but he, too, is looking to rebound off a bad start. He went just 2.2 innings in his last start and needed 77-pitches to get that far against the Dodgers. He gave up three runs in that game while walking three and giving up five hits.
The rough start could just be a blip on the screen, but it could also be a sign of fatigue. The last two seasons, Manaea has pitched 144.2 innings and 158.2 innings. He’s at a 144 this year, right around the limit he’s thrown. That’ could be important down the stretch, but for now, he’s not too far extended to expect the bad start to be a trend.
This year, he’s 10-8 with a 3.50 ERA though his FIP is higher at 4.26. Like Gonzales, he’s got a low walk total at 29, but he’s allowed a few more home runs and has a lower strikeout rate at 6.2 per nine innings. Rather than striking everyone out, he’s forcing weak contact. With a good defense that’s been just as effective, but the lower Ks hurt him in the FIP.
As the series continues, the middle game will feature James Paxton and Mike Feirs.
Paxton had an impressive 16 strikeout performance against the A’s back in May and will try and replicate that on Tuesday. He’s 3-0 with a 3.32 ERA in seven career starts against Oakland.
The Seattle ace is 10-5 with a 3.63 ERA and 1.094 WHIP. He’s also got a 3.04 FIP as a byproduct of his 11.3 strikeouts per nine innings and his rather low walk and home run rates. He’s made 23 starts and thrown 139 innings in that time.
Over the years, Paxton’s talent has shown through whenever healthy, but this is his first season staying healthy—at least so far. His start Tuesday will tie a career high for starts in a season and his 139 innings is already more than he’s thrown in any season to date at the big-league level. As such, fatigue does begin to become a concern.
Meanwhile, for Fiers, it’s just the second start since joining the A’s for the veteran right-hander. Fiers was having a very strong season in Detroit and looked solid in his first start in Oakland, going 5.1 innings against the Dodgers with his only run allowed coming off a solo home run.
Overall, he’s already accumulated 3.4 rWAR, almost half of his career rWAR, and has near career leading numbers across the board save for strikeouts. He’s dialed back the swing and miss in favor for weak contact and that paid off for him in Detroit and should do the same in Oakland where he has a good defense behind him.
On the season, Fiers has made 22 combined starts for 124.1 innings. He’s 7-6 with a 3.40 ERA and 1.214 WHIP. He has allowed 21 home runs, but, much like Manaea, is keeping the walks in check.
To wrap up this series, the pitching matchup will feature a couple grizzled veterans, one from the right side in Seattle’s Mike Leake and the other a southpaw in the A’s Brett Anderson.
Leake has the better career behind him. The veteran right-hander, however, hasn’t won a game since late June, though he hasn’t exactly been bad in that time. He’s got a 4.11 ERA over his last eight starts, but just a 0-3 record.
Leake doesn’t have a win against the A”s this seasons, either, but in two starts, he’s pitched to a 2.84 ERA.
At 8-7 with a 4.11 ERA and 1.309 WHIP, for all his shortcomings, Leake has been a solid mid-rotation arm, giving Seattle a chance to win the game often.
As for Anderson, he’s seemingly back from the abyss. It looked like Anderson’s career was all but over until he returned to Oakland. He’s been respectable for the A’s. He’s not going to go deep in games, but he will give Oakland five solid. That’s what he did against the Angels in his last start and what he’s done in five of his six starts since coming off the DL.
Overall, in 10 starts, the 30-year old southpaw is 2-3 with a 4.53 ERA and 1.406 WHIP. He allowed too many hits and homers and has a very low strikeout rate, but Oakland is 6-4 when he has the ball and 4-2 in his last six starts.
Live Betting
Both the Mariners and the A’s have put an emphasis on the bullpen in mid-season acquisitions they’ve made.
Seattle started making moves earlier and added Alex Colome, Sam Tuivailala, Zach Duke and Adam Waren. Duke and Warren have had their issues in small sample sizes, but since his acquisition, Tuivailala has gone 5.1 innings allowing just one run. Meanwhile, Colome had a bit of a time adjusting to the Mariners, but he’s had 12 scoreless appearances since the All-Star break.
With Colome pitching his best baseball right now and Edwin Diaz one of the best closers with a 2.02 ERA and 45 saves, the Mariners should close out any game they’ve got the lead through seven but getting that lead and holding it through seven innings may still be an issue. The middle of the pen still needs to iron itself out with the new names.
On the other side, the A’s already have the fourth best bullpen in baseball with a 3.28 ERA, but have added to that with Fernando Rodney and Shawn Kelley both joining the team in August. Jeurys Familia was added back in July.
Those three arms have combined to go 12.2 scoreless innings and are added to an already deep bullpen with Blake Treinen nailing down the ninth with a 0.93 ERA and 29 saves in 58 innings. Meanwhile, Lou Trivino had eight wins and a 1.58 ERA. With those five arms, the A’s really only need five innings from its starts and that doesn’t even including solid relievers like Ryan Buchter, Emilio Pagan and Yusmeiro Petit, all of whom have sub-4 ERAs and offer varying arm angles and looks for the opposition.
MLB Pick
This is a perfect scenario for the Mariners. They need to play the A’s head-to-head to close the gap in the AL Wild Card race and they have some of their better arms lined up to make the starts.
Despite that, it doesn’t seem likely they’ll be able to sweep—or even win the series—against Oakland. Regardless of the opposition, sweeps are hard to bank on anyway.
Look for the A’s to take two out of three at home. Oakland is rolling. They’ve got a reinforced bullpen and a hot offense while the Mariners are still waiting for the likes of Segura and Haniger to heat back up after the break. Perhaps Cano can be an offensive spark, too, but it’s just as likely he becomes a bigger distraction and hindrance than a help.
The Mariners should be able to steal a game, possibly the one thrown by Paxton who is, after all, still their ace. That said, it seems unlikely they’ll get more than that, particularly on the road.
Gonzales has lost his last couple games and is matched up with Manaea while Anderson has shown he can at least get Oakland through five and with that bullpen, five innings is more than enough.
Look for the A’s bullpen to play big, nabbing a couple saves in this series while the offense continues to roll behind Chapman and the gang.
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