The best team in baseball meets the worst in baseball on Monday night to start a weekday series.
The Tampa Bay Rays are a wagon, 48-20 on the year and running away with the best record in Major League Baseball. The team is in Oakland as predictably large favorites against the 17-50 Athletics, but is there a betting angle to take when betting such a mismatch?
Here are the odds for Monday's matchup:
Rays vs. Athletics odds, run line and total
Rays vs. Athletics prediction and pick
There's little value backing the Rays in this one. Oddsmakers know that this matchup is going to be lopsided, so if you want to be on Tampa Bay we have to get a bit more creative. So, let's back the team's blistering offense to tee off on James Kapriellian and the A's poor bullpen.
Kapriellian has an ERA of 7.21, one of the worst in baseball, and while his xERA is far lower at 5.56, he lends himself to hard contact with a flyball rate of 73% and a home run to fly ball rate of over 10%. He is allowing foes to hit .326 on balls in play and has an astoundingly low 62% stranded rate.
He'll face a Rays offense that is tops in slugging percentage and the team's ability to get the barrel on the ball is going to lead to a massive run total. If the Rays put pressure on Kapriellian early, the A's will need to go into the league worst bullpen that has an ERA of 6.00 this season and has allowed the most home runs as a unit (39).
Overall, avoid taking a side, or trusting the A's offense, take the Rays team total over.
Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
