The Los Angeles Angels have climbed out of the AL West basement, but in order to stay out of the cellar, they'll need to grab a few road wins against the division-leading Oakland A's.
The Halos are putting their best foot forward for the series opener, with MVP favorite Shohei Ohtani taking the mound, but still find themselves as MLB betting underdogs as Oakland counters with the reliable Chris Bassitt.
Here are our best MLB picks and predictions for Angels vs. A's on Thursday, May 27 with first pitch scheduled for 9:40 p.m. ET.
Angels vs A's game info
• Location: Oakland Coliseum, Oakland, CA
• Date: Thursday, May 27, 2021
• Time: 9:40 p.m. ET
• TV: NBCS-CA, BS-W
Angels vs A's odds
Odds via the Covers Line, an average comprised of odds from multiple sportsbooks.
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Angels vs A's betting preview
Starting pitchers
Shohei Ohtani (1-0, 2.37 ERA): Ohtani'spitching talent is undeniable — as shown by his low ERA and 13.4 K/9 ratio — but the question is how many innings he can throw in a game? Two weeks ago he spun a seven-inning gem, giving up just one run with 10 strikeouts, but it was just the third time in six starts he's completed five innings. Ohtani's fastball, which he's ramped up to triple digits, gets all the hype but it's the pitch opponents hit the best (.313 average), whereas his slider is truly his best pitch (.188 OBA) and he throws four additional pitches with regularity.
Chris Bassitt (4-2, 3.69 ERA): After a sensational 2020, Bassitt is in the midst of another strong season for the A's. He has given up two earned runs in seven of his last eight starts and is coming off his best outing of the season, scattering five hits and two runs over 7 2-3 innings with eight strikeouts against these same Angels just five days ago. The 32-year-old righty mixes a three-headed fastball combo, leading with a heavy sinker and complementing it with a cutter and a fourseam fastball.
Weather
Be sure to monitor the gametime conditions with our MLB weather info.
Key injuries
Angels: Jose Iglesias SS (Questionable), Mike Trout OF (Out), Max Stassi C (Out), Dexter Fowler OF (Out).
A's: Mitch Moreland DH (Questionable).
Find our latest MLB injury reports.
Betting trend to know
The A's are 6-1 in the last seven opening games of a series. Find more MLB betting trends for Angels vs. A's.
Moneyline pick
The A's snapped a three-game losing streak with a win yesterday against Seattle and head into this four-game set atop the AL West with a 29-22 record. Oakland has been doing an adequate job of run prevention lately, giving up four runs or fewer in five of its last six games, but the offense has also just been adequate lately as well — which is par for the course for an A's team that is near the league-average mark for runs per game.
The Angels are coming into this matchup on a three-game winning streak with the offense still powering the team, despite superstar Mike Trout sitting on the IL. Los Angeles just scored 20 runs in two games (albeit against the hapless Rangers), but it had to sweat out yesterday's win as the bullpen nearly barfed up a 9-1 lead and hung on for a 9-8 victory.
That's been the issue for the Halos all season: an inability to pitch. The Angels are dead-last in the majors in team ERA, despite Ohtani's brilliance on the mound, with a big part of that coming as a result of a bullpen that has the fourth-worst ERA and gives up the second-most home runs per nine innings.
A homer-prone bullpen is a bad matchup against an Oakland lineup that is tied for third in the majors in dingers, and the A's can almost certainly expect to get multiple innings against the LA relievers. Ohtani has pitched into the sixth inning in just half of his starts so far and has only reached the seventh inning once in six outings.
On the flip side, Oakland is sending out Chris Bassitt, who just tamed the Angels over 7 2-3 innings five days ago, and has a better bullpen that is led by some power arms in Lou Trivino, Yusmeiro Petit and Jake Diekman.
These teams played three games a week ago, with Oakland taking two of three. In both of those wins, the A's scored 11 of their 14 runs in the 6th inning or later. We expect this one to be close again early on, but the bullpens will be the difference. We'll take the A's to strike first in the opener.
PREDICTION: Oakland (-150)
Over/Under pick
With their pitching struggles, it's no surprise that the Angels are 30-19 O/U on the season — and have hit the Over in nine of their last 11 games.
Oakland has been skewed towards the Over as well (26-23-2 O/U this year), and went Over in two of the three games against the Angels last week, with at least eight runs combined in each game.
The A's are a little feast-or-famine, however, as they bop a bunch of home runs but have the fifth-worst team batting average (.226) in the MLB. Furthering the potential of offensive woes will be Ohtani, who has seen four of the last five games he's pitched finish Under the total.
The two-way standout has given up two or fewer earned runs in all but one of his outings, while Bassitt, as mentioned above, has given up exactly two earned runs in seven of his last eight starts.
If this game is going to go Over the total, it won't be due to the starters, who we expect to keep these offenses in check through half of the game. The bullpens will cough up some runs, but asking for potentially five or six runs in the final frames is a bit much for us.
We'll take the Under tonight.
PREDICTION: Under 7.5 (-105)
Angels vs A's betting card
- Oakland ML (-150)
- Under 7.5 (-105)
Picks made on 5/27/2021 at 10:17 a.m. ET
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