Seattle Mariners vs. Oakland A’s Preview<\/strong><\/p>\nThe A’s are technically the home team in this game and they are the slight favorites. While the A’s had a better record last season the Mariners will have the 2010 Cy Yong winner on the mound. MLB lines have the A’s posted as slight favorites at -120 with the Mariners at +100 and a total of 9.5 runs.<\/p>\n
Last season the A’s finished 3rd in the AL West at 74-88 and the Mariners finished in the basement at 67-95, which was the 2nd worst record in the American League.<\/p>\n
It is probably a good thing that this Oakland “home” game is in Japan, as in the Mariners last 52 road games they are only 16-36.<\/p>\n
Taking the mound for Seattle in this game is Felix Hernandez (2011 record – 14-14 3.47 ERA) and for Oakland is Brandon McCarthy (2011 record – 9-9 3.34 ERA). The A’s have not had much luck against Hernandez, as they are 3-14 in his last 17 starts against Oakland.<\/p>\n
The Mariners may need a great start from Hernandez, as last season they ranked 30th in the Majors in runs, batting average, and on-base percentage.<\/p>\n
The big move by the Mariners in the off-season was that they traded #2 starter Michael Pineda to the Yankees for highly touted prospect Jesus Montero. He has all the tools to be a star and hit over .325 after New York called him up last season. [dfads params=’groups=10&limit=1&return_javascript=0′]<\/p>\n
The Mariners will need Chone Figgins and Ichiro to get to McCarthy early in this game and get on base.<\/p>\n
Last season the A’s ranked 20th in the Majors in runs scored and they also have a new hot prospect in Yoenis Cespedes, but Coco Crisp and Jemile Weeks are the 2 guys that may be key to the A’s this season. Weeks was the only player that hit over .265 for the season.<\/p>\n
Neither team has a lot of power and getting on base and key hits will be important in this game, but I see a pitching duel in the making for the opening game of the season.<\/p>\n
In some betting trends for this AL West match up the Mariners are 6-13 in their last 19 games vs. a right-handed starter, 34-70 in their last 104 vs. American League West, and they have an Over record of 5-2 in their last 7 road games.<\/p>\n
The A’s are 5-2 in their last 7 overall, 6-2 in McCarthy’s last 8 home starts, and they have an Under record of 6-1-1 in their last 8 games.<\/p>\n
Jason’s Pick:<\/strong> I have to go with the Mariners in this game simply because of Felix Hernandez. I think this will be a low scoring pitching duel and for the game take the Mariners and the Under.<\/p>\nView The MLB Cappers Leaderboard For 2011 \u00a0– Picks Packages for 2012 On Sale! \u2014\u2013><\/strong><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bet On MLB: M’s vs. A’s Handicapping The 2012 MLB season will open in the Land of the Rising Sun and the 2 game series in Japan will be dedicated to assisting in the rebuilding efforts across that nation that is still recovering from a massive earthquake last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":193,"featured_media":36043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[670],"tags":[111,458,22527,54305,54306,681,683,54303,54302,54304],"class_list":["post-49912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb-baseball","tag-baseball-picks","tag-free-mlb-pick","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-mariners-athletics-lines","tag-mariners-vs-athletics-free-prediction","tag-mlb-gambling","tag-mlb-handicapping","tag-seattle-mariners-vs-oakland-athletics-gambling","tag-seattle-oakland-odds","tag-seattle-vs-oakland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49912"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107930,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49912\/revisions\/107930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}