Bet On the MLB - Giants vs A's July 8th

Hello all, this is my first foray in to baseball predicting, so please bare with me while I look for the style I want in my blogs.

Tonight’s chosen match-up: San Francisco Giants (49-40) @ Oakland A’s (56-33)

The San Francisco Giants come in to tonight’s ballgame looking up at the Dodgers in the NL West. After last night’s 5-0 defeat in Oakland they now sit a full game back of the Dodgers. The Giants’ recent inability to produce runs is the key to why they’ve only won 7 of their last 26 games. During that time period they’ve failed to score more than 2 runs 14 times. Their starter tonight is Madison Bumgarner. Bumgarner sports a decent 9-6 record with a 3.09 era (just a percentage point behind his 3.08 career era). He has lost 3 of his last 5 starts and has lasted 6 innings or less in 2 of those starts. The Oakland Athletics enter tonight’s game as the team with the best record in the majors. They are sporting a .629 winning percentage. No other team in baseball has a .600 winning percentage. The A’s have won their last 5 games and in those 5 games they’ve outscored their opponents 19-4. They’ve held their foes to 1 run or fewer in 4 of the 5 games while scoring 4 runs or more in 4 of the 5 games. They currently lead the AL West by 3.5 games over the Angels. Their starter tonight is Sonny Gray. Gray sports an impressive 8-3 record with a 3.08 era (for his career he has a 2.93 era). He’s notched a W in 2 of his last 3 starts. Since a start on May 22nd his era has taking a negative turn from 1.99 to his current 3.08.

Tonight is the 2nd meeting this season between the Giants and A’s as they’ll play game 2 in Oakland then head to San Francisco for games 3 and 4 of this home and home series. The A’s won 3 of the 4 meetings with the Giants last season.

Giants vs A’s Prediction

Currently these teams are going down different paths as the Giants have stumbled right out of 1st place in their division while the A’s have every other team in MLB in their rear view mirror. Gray has given up 3 or more runs in 5 of his last 7 starts but I don’t see that really being a factor against a Giants team that is struggling to get runs across the plate. The A’s will keep their momentum going as they take game 2 of their series versus the Giants.

Take the A’s -155 (Bovada.lv)