Seattle Mariners vs. Oakland Athletics Prediction & Pick

Seattle Mariners vs. Oakland Athletics Prediction & Pick

Monday, August 23, 2021 – 9:40pm EST

Oakland Coliseum

Seattle Mariners vs. Oakland Athletics Probable Pitchers:

• Mariners: Marco Gonzales (5-5, 4.10 ERA)
• Athletics: Paul Blackburn (0-1, 5.06 ERA)

Click Here To See Mariners Vs. Athletics Odds

​​The Athletics have 70 wins on the year and are looking for more considering they just out-played the Giants yesterday and still came away with a loss.

The A’s will take on a left-handed pitcher in Marco Gonzales of the Mariners. He’s 5-5 on the season with a 4.10 ERA. The left-hander has allowed just two runs on 16 hits in 27 innings of work. He’s also totaled 21 strikeouts and four walks while giving up 47 fly balls and 26 ground balls.

It’s been a really good stretch for Gonzales, who hasn’t allowed more than three runs in seven straight games while accumulating at least five innings in every one of those starts. Since that streak began, Gonzales has gone 4-0 through those seven games.

However, Gonzales faced Texas three times of those seven games. That’s going to help the ERA and record a bit. Against Texas, Gonzales allowed just two runs in three starts while totaling 21.1 innings of work in August alone.

Against the Athletics late July, Gonzales wasn’t at his best, giving up two runs off five hits in 5.2 innings of work. He struck out four batters and exceeded 100 pitches before getting out of the 6th inning.

In the last 30 days, Gonzales has a 4.77 xFIP and is striking out 20.5 percent of batters. He’s also had trouble inducing ground balls against righties, getting only 31.1 percent of his last 94 right-handed batters to hit grounders.

The A’s lineup figures to be all right-handed outside of Matt Olson, who already has four home runs against Gonzales in his career with an OPS of .892 in 33 at-bats.

Matt Chapman, Yan Gomes, and Jed Lowrie have averages above .333 against Gonzales and if the A’s choose to add Tony Kemp into the lineup, they’ll have another bat that has found success against Gonzales.

The A’s projected lineup with all righties and Olson, has a wOBA of .357 and only strike out 17.7 percent of the time. They’re also walking 10.3 percent of the time, although Gonzales isn’t a high walk guy.

It’s hard to hit for power in Oakland and only Olson and Chapman have been consistent recently, but if the other guys get on base for Olson and Chapman, we could see plenty of runs and RBI’s from those two sluggers. 

Only Jed Lowrie and Chad Pinder are striking out over 21 percent of the time on this team and as a team, the A’s are also hitting 23.7 percent line drive contact against lefties.

This could be the game where Gonzales finally struggles. After all, taking on the Rangers in three of seven games is going to help. While Texas still has a “major league” lineup, they’ve been terrible against lefties to begin with.

It’s a small slate of games and there’s not much to like on today’s card. But if I had to pick anything, this would be one of the best tonight. I like the A’s to score three runs in the first five innings. We know they’ll have chances. We just need a couple clutch hits from the power bats in the lineup.

MLB Bet:  Athletics Over 2.5 F5 TT (-105) at PointsBet

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