Team Total Play Fading Worst Team In Baseball

Athletics vs. Tigers, 1:40 ET

As soon as I decided to write about these two teams, I wondered: "Does anyone really care about either of these teams?" The answer to that is pretty simple for at least one of the teams: No. No one cares about the Oakland Athletics. The team has struggled for years to get attendance and honestly in the last 10 years I can’t say that I remember anything relevant about the franchise aside from Moneyball, not the theory, the movie and that was released 13 years ago. Still, sports betting allows us enjoy teams regardless of fan base sides. Today, we will get a play on a game between the Athletics and the Tigers. 

If you’ve ever seen the movie Major League, you’ll remember the Cleveland Indians having a terrible owner that is hoping they lose so she can move the franchise. There has been a ton of chatter about the Athletics leaving Oakland and heading to Las Vegas. Of course, there are some die-hard fans that don’t want to let the team leave, but if this is the product they are going to put on the field, I’d suggest letting them head out. I guess the hope is that their team can build through the draft. Today, Joe Boyle is taking the hill. For his entire career, Boyle has a total of 18.2 innings pitched, and he has allowed 10 earned runs in that stretch. The problem is that he has only pitched 2.2 innings this season and he has allowed seven earned runs in those innings. In 2.2 innings against the Red Sox, he allowed 12 base runners. He recorded eight outs and allowed eight hits. He also allowed four walks to the Red Sox. The offense of the Tigers, in my power rankings isn’t that much lower than the Red Sox, so they could have similar success. 

The Tigers are one of the hottest teams in the game to start the season. The good news for Detroit fans is that even when they come back down to Earth a bit, they are in a division that is winnable. I don’t particularly like their lineup and think the Twins will probably end up on top, but again that is months away. If their pitching staff continues to pitch the way they have been the Tigers should have no problems along the way. One of the guys I am most excited about on their roster is taking the ball today. Jack Flaherty is the starter for the Tigers today and he gets to face the minor league lineup that the Athletics are rolling out there. Flaherty has very good stuff, but injuries have been an issue for him during his career. In his first game for the Tigers he was great, allowing just four hits, including one solo home run over six innings against the White Sox. 

For this game, the best route is looking at the team totals. I do think the Tigers win this game by the run line, and I'll sprinkle on that, but I like the team totals better. The Athletics can't hit, and they have a bad pitcher going. If you want you can try to take the Tigers team total over, but I actually feel less confident in that than I do taking the Athletics to score under 3.5 runs in today's contest. Sure, Flaherty could fall apart or have a bad start and walk guys, but the A's aren't even taking many walks and that seems to be when Flaherty gets in the most trouble. Take under 3.5 for the Athletics team total. 

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