Oakland Athletics vs. Texas Rangers Prediction & Picks

Oakland Athletics vs. Texas Rangers Prediction & Picks

Probable Pitchers:

• Athletics: James Kaprielian (6-4, 3.22 ERA)
• Rangers: Jordan Lyles (5-9, 5.46 ERA)

Click here to see Athletics vs Rangers odds.

Oakland Athletics vs. Texas Rangers Prediction

The Athletics continue to score runs as of late and that shouldn’t be a problem tonight. After an 8-6 loss to the Rangers last night, the A’s will look to get back on track against Jordan Lyles and the Rangers.

Lyles is 5-9 with a 5.46 ERA on the season. Just last week he faced the A’s and allowed 10 hits and four walks along with six runs including one home run.

Right now, the Rangers aren’t playing around. Despite Lyles allowing those six runs, he still went 114 pitches deep. In the game before against the Angels, Lyles also allowed six runs but stayed in to throw 110 pitches.

In the last 30 days, Lyles has been rocked. He has a 6.10 xFIP along with just 18.5 percent strikeouts and 10 percent walks. The ground ball rate is around just 30 percent, he’s giving up 22.6 percent line drive percentage and has allowed batters to hit 53.8 percent hard contact, which is absurd.

The last 45 lefties that he has faced have hit a .469 wOBA and ISO of .421. Meanwhile, his last 85 righties have hiht a wOBA of .369 and an ISO of .282.

To lefties, he has trouble finding the zone, walking 15.6 percent of those batters. He’s also only struck out 13.3 percent of lefties in the last 30 days. That’s more walks to lefties than strikeouts.

The A’s lineup already destroyed Lyles for six runs last week and they still profile well this week. They’ll have five lefties in the lineup including Matt Olson who has all the power in the world this season. They’ll also have Mitch Moreland, Seth Brown, Tony Kemp and switch hitter Jed Lowrie batting from the left side.

It’s a balanced attack that, combined, has a .211 ISO and wOBA of .372. The projected lineup only has 20.3 percent strikeouts and walks 9.4 percent of the time. What makes this team even better is how they’ve also limited ground balls to just 37.9 percent.

If Lyles struggles to get grounders and the A’s don’t hit grounders, we’ll likely see plenty of hard hit balls find the outfield grass.

Last Sunday, Lyles was knocked around for three runs in the first and finally blew up in the fourth inning. Again, even if Lyles struggles, he’s going to stay in. The Rangers have nothing to play for and have an atrocious bullpen.

The two pitchers who came into relief in that Sunday game also had a 5.29 ERA and 7.53 ERA.

However, in a game against the A’s on July 9, Lyles allowed seven it's through six innings and allowed just two runs in that game. Still, he allowed seven hits and probably should’ve allowed a couple more per the analytics.

Also, in a game on June 22, Lyles allowed two runs in six innings with five hits and a walk. Oakland ended up scoring plenty of runs against the bullpen in the later innings to seal that win, however.

With Lyles, the A’s will always have a chance to hit their team total. They’ll score runs and he’ll exit the game and allow the bullpen to finish it.

So with that, we’ll pay up for the juice and take the A’s Over 4.5 on the team total. 

MLB Bet: Athletics Over 4.5 TT (-150) at MGM

Click here to see Athletics vs Rangers odds.