Texas Rangers (31-48) vs. Oakland Athletics (47-34)
July 1, 2021 3:37 pm EDT
The Line: Oakland Athletics -165 / Texas Rangers +152; Over/Under: 8
(Get latest betting odds)
The Texas Rangers and the Oakland A’s meet in an AL West matchup in MLB action from RingCentral Coliseum on Thursday.
The Texas Rangers will look to rebound from a 3-1 loss at the hands of Oakland on Wednesday night. Joey Gallo’s solo home run accounted for the lone RBI for the Rangers in the losing effort while Eli White went 2 for 4 with a double. Isiah Kiner-Falefa went 2 for 4 at the dish while Nate Lowe and Andy Ibanez each had a hit as well to finish off Texas’ offense as a team in the loss. Kolby Allard took the loss, falling to 2-4 on the year after allowing all three runs on four hits while striking out five over six innings of work. Dane Dunning will start here and is 3-6 with a 4.63 ERA and 75 strikeouts this season. This will be Dunning’s first career start against the A’s.
The Oakland A’s will look to build on their win over the Rangers from Wednesday. Frank Schwindel had a two-run home run while Sean Murphy added an RBI as well to finish off Oakland’s scoring as a team in the win. Elvis Andrus added a pair of hits while Chad Pinder added a base hit as well as the A’s just five hits as a team in the victory. Chris Bassitt got the win to improve to 9-2 on the year after tossing seven shutout innings, allowing just three hits while striking out seven. Lou Trivino closed out the 9th for his 13th save of the season. Sean Manaea will start here and is 6-4 with a 2.91 ERA and 96 strikeouts this season. In his career, Manaea is 7-2 with a 3.41 ERA and 65 strikeouts against Texas.
Texas is 14-46 in their last 60 road games and 3-10 in their last 13 division games while the over is 6-1-1 in their last 8 games as a road underdog. Oakland is 14-5 in their last 19 games as a favorite and 111-50 in their last 161 games as a home favorite while the under is 3-1-1 in their last 5 Thursday games.
This should be an interesting matchup after Wednesday’s tight affair, but I’m still going to side with the under here. Dunning’s pitched well in spots and just hasn’t had the run support needed to get in the win column, while Sean Manaea has pitched well for the majority of the season for the A’s. I think another 3-1 or 3-2 game could be on the cards for Thursday, so give me the under in this one.
