BEST LINES: Pinnacle +114 Bet365 -1½ +105 SportsInteraction +115 5DIMES +115 

Posted at 9:40 AM EST. 

3:05 PM EST. Texas has been contenders for a few years while Oakland has been irrelevant for just as long. The Rangers are known for scoring runs in bunches with several front-line players over the years while the casual fan that does not live in the Bay area probably couldn’t name two players that are on the current A’s roster. Furthermore, the Rangers are heating up with five wins in a row, including the first two games of this series while the A’s have five wins in 17 road games. Finally, A.J. Griffin is 4-0 with a 2.67 ERA and is 3-0 over his past three starts with a 0.45 ERA while Kendall Gravemen is 0-2 over his last three starts with an ERA of 5.45. One would be hard-pressed to make a case for the A’s today, yet they are the smallest dog on the board. Why? Every favorite today is priced higher than Texas so chalk bettors will likely be pounding the Rangers today and that’s precisely what this line is begging you to do. Be very cautious if you were thinking Texas today.

Linesmakers are gambling today that A.J. Griffin’s strong start comes to a halt. Griffin has a nifty BB/K split of 6/27 in 29 innings. That outstanding control has the support of his 73% first-pitch strike rate but his 27 K’s in 29 innings does not have the support of his 9% swing and miss rate. Griffin has only thrown 400 MLB innings over the past five years. He needed a Rust-Oleum break last May for shoulder stiffness and then pitched creakily in the rotation the rest of the year. Recent repairs (2104 TJS, 2015 shoulder) and poor results kept his run times short (5 IP/start). He also had 2nd half struggles last year with a line-drive jump to 38%. The 29 innings this year are nice but the bigger picture says this warm recovery is still in progress and some blowups are forthcoming. Again, oddsmakers are betting on Kendall Gravemen having a much better game than A. J. Griffin and/or the A’s offense doing the same. That’s good enough for us.  

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