Rays at Athletics
O/U 9.5 · RL Rays -1.5
Rays -1.5-144
CONF 63%
WCashedFinal 8-4
The read
Getaway day in West Sacramento, brooms out, and the best team in the American League hands the ball to the hottest arm it has. The Rays have won eight straight, they've outscored the A's 22-10 through two games of this set, and now here comes Drew Rasmussen — twenty consecutive scoreless innings, 27 strikeouts against four walks over his last three starts. The A's answer with a getaway-day lineup that gives Jacob Wilson, Jeff McNeil, and Jonah Heim the afternoon off, which stacks five right-handed bats into the card against a man holding righties to a .167 average. Sacramento has lost seven straight in its own building, and this is not the afternoon that streak dies.
The other dugout is where the margin gets made. Jack Perkins has wrestled his command all summer — a 7.04 ERA, multiple home runs allowed in three of his last five starts — and he's an extreme fly-ball pitcher stepping into a park that carries, 81 degrees, wind blowing out to center. The Rays hit six balls out of this yard last night. Junior Caminero has six homers in two weeks, Yandy Diaz hits .346 in day games, and even Taylor Walls — homerless for a calendar year — hit two in thirty minutes on Tuesday. Hitters aren't missing Perkins' fastball, and this lineup doesn't miss mistakes in bunches.
The run line is a margin question, and the margin lives in the late innings. Nick Martinez went all nine last night, so Tampa Bay's entire leverage crew — Bryan Baker, Kevin Kelly, Tyler Wells — is fully rested behind Rasmussen. The A's pen has bled fourteen earned runs over its last ten innings, lost José Suarez to the injured list this morning, and already gave up an eight-run eighth in the opener of this series. Even if Perkins grinds out five competitive innings, the final twelve outs belong to a rested, elite bullpen protecting a lead against a gassed one that hasn't held a line all week. That's how a one-run afternoon becomes a three-run afternoon. Lay the run and a half — Rays -1.5 at -144.
Props on this game
4Jack PerkinsOVER 2.5 Pitcher Earned Runs Pitcher Earned Runs-145
WActual 6
Three earned runs is a low bar against a Tampa Bay lineup that has already scored 22 times in this series. Perkins has surrendered 13 earned runs across 14 innings in his last three starts, and his four-seamer has been hit for a .302 average and .391 expected wOBA. That is a dangerous weakness against Yandy Diaz, Junior Caminero and a Rays lineup that just launched six home runs in this park. The price is substantial, but Perkins has cleared this number in six of his last eight starts and may not need to survive the fifth inning for this over to cash.
Drew RasmussenOVER 5.5 Strikeouts Strikeouts-132
LActual 3
Rasmussen has recorded 27 strikeouts in 20 scoreless innings across his last three starts, reaching at least eight each time. His command is allowing him to work deep, and Oakland gives him several targets: Tyler Soderstrom carries a 32 percent recent whiff rate, Henry Bolte is at 37 percent and Max Muncy is at 40 percent. Rasmussen can attack both sides with four pitches producing strong results, while the Athletics average 8.68 strikeouts per game. With six innings as the reasonable workload, I want him to find six punchouts.
Junior CamineroOVER 0.5 Home Runs Home Runs+450
LActual 0
Junior Caminero has run into six home runs in his last fifteen games, three of them in the last week alone, and two of those came against this same Athletics pitching staff already this series — a three-run shot in the opener Monday, a two-run blast Tuesday. That's not empty power either: three barrels in nineteen batted balls over his last two weeks, a 92 mile-an-hour average exit velocity.
Now he draws Jack Perkins, a converted reliever who has allowed a home run in four of his last six starts and gets hit for an .802 OPS by right-handed bats like Caminero's. Sutter Health Park plays hitter-friendly, it's a warm afternoon in Sacramento, and this Rays offense has already hung twenty-two runs on Oakland through two games of this set.
Caminero isn't waiting on a mistake right now — he's finding one most nights. Take the home run at plus money.
Yandy DiazOVER 0.5 Home Runs Home Runs+800
LActual 0
Yandy Diaz has been one of the best day-game hitters in baseball for years — a .346 average and .851 OPS when the first pitch comes before dark. He's hitting .333 with two home runs over his last week, fifteen hard-hit balls in his last twenty-six batted balls, and he's already gone deep in each of the first two games of this series.
The matchup fits: Jack Perkins is a fly-ball pitcher with a 38 percent hard-hit rate allowed and seven home runs surrendered to right-handed hitters in just 150 at-bats, having given up a homer in four of his last six starts. Sutter Health Park plays hitter-friendly, it's a sunlit Sacramento afternoon, and Diaz has been squaring the ball up all series long.
This is a good number for a hitter this locked in against a pitcher this hittable.
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