Oakland Athletics vs. Cleveland Indians Prediction & Pick

Oakland Athletics vs. Cleveland Indians Prediction & Pick

Date: Tuesday, August 10

Time: 7:10pm ET

Where: Progressive Field

Oakland Athletics vs. Cleveland Indians Probable Pitchers 

• Athletics: Sean Manaea (8-7, 3.26 ERA)
• Indians: Tristan McKenzie (1-5, 5.89 ERA)

Oakland Athletics vs. Cleveland Indians Prediction

The Oakland Athletics continue their playoff push against the Cleveland Indians on the road. With the Yankees starting to get hot and win games, they’ll need to continue to win and stay afloat in the AL Wild Card standings.

The A’s made some significant moves by the trade deadline adding 33 percent of their lineup including Starling Marte, Yan Gomes and Josh Harrison, all via the trade deadline.

The lineup will take on Tristian McKenzie of the Indians who has a 1-5 record with a 5.89 ERA. He’s shown glimpses of potential but hasn’t put it together at all this season.

In the last 30 days, McKenzie has allowed an xFIP of 5.88 with a strikeout rate of just 16.5 percent. For a guy that is known for high strikeouts, that’s not encouraging at all.  

Furthermore, McKenzie has limited the walks but is struggling to induce ground balls while also allowing hard contact of 45.7 percent in the last 30 days.

The right-hander has been okay against lefties with a .325 wOBA and ISO of .200 in his last 38 plate appearances. That’s still below average but it’s not terrible.

Then, against righties, in his last 53 plate appearances, he’s allowed a wOBA of .385 with an ISO of .380. He’s only struck out 13.2 percent of those 53 righties while giving up 53.3 percent hard contact.

On the season, McKenzie is known for high strikeouts and high walks. As of late, he’s had low strikeouts and actually has low walks. On top of all that, McKenzie has also given up 1.92 home runs per nine innings and struggles to hold runners on with a left on base percentage of 67.1 percent.

The projected lineup for the Athletics has a .227 ISO and wOBA of .383 in the last 30 days against righties. They’re only striking out 20.1 percent of the time and have a 7.4 percent walk rate, which is good enough.

Yan Gomes, one of the players the A’s traded for at the deadline, has crushed righties in his last 13 plate appearances with a .538 ISO and wOBA of .591. Marte and Harrison have also done extremely well with high wOBA and above average ISO numbers.

The A’s never get talked about much but their offseason moves meant business and now they’re showing off against righties.

As of late, McKenzie has held teams to a BABIP of .238 but the A’s have a BABIP of .343 as a lineup through the same amount of time period. With Cleveland being 87 degrees with 12mph winds blowing out to center field, I like the A’s chances of getting some long ball action tonight against McKenzie.

The A’s have a hot lineup that has hit the ball hard as of late. Seven of the nine projected batters hit the ball with hard contact while only two batters in the projected lineup hit a high amount of grounders. That means the A’s are hitting hard contact in the air and with this kind of weather, the A’s could have a serious slugfest early against the Indians.

Oakland Athletics vs. Cleveland Indians Prediction:  A's F5 TT Over 2.5 @ -110

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