#968 ASA TOP PLAY ON 10* Oakland -130 over Baltimore, Thursday at 3:37 PM ET - This will be the fourth game of this series with the A’s taking 2 of the first 3. Baltimore’s lone victory in this series was yesterday’s 1-0 win and the O’s only run was unearned. The Orioles have scored a grand total of 3 runs in this series, 1 in each game. That’s actually not out of character for this offense that has scored a grand total of 24 runs in 12 games this year for an average of 2 RPG, last in the league. They’ve actually scored 2 or fewer runs in 75% of their games so far this season (9 of their 12 games). It’s amazing they’ve actually won 4 of their 12 games on the season. The A’s had an off night at the plate yesterday, although they did out hit the O’s in the loss. Despite putting up a zero yesterday, the A’s have scored 60 runs this season which is good for 7th most in MLB. We expect them to bounce back in the series finale on Friday facing Baltimore pitcher, Tyler Wells, who has a WHIP of 1.76 this season and struggled with walks allowing an average of almost 6.5 per 9 innings. He has allowed 10 baserunners in just 5.2 innings this season, his first year as a starter after working out of the bullpen last season. While we expect Oakland to have success offensively, this one should be another struggle for the Orioles offense. They face Paul Blackburn who has allowed 2 ER’s this year in 10 innings of work with an outstanding xFIP of 1.89. Unlike Wells, the Oakland starter has not struggled with his control with a strikeout to walk ratio of 9 to 1. When they do go to the bullpen the A’s relievers have been solid with an ERA of 2.89 on the year. Oakland won’t need to do much offensively to pick up this win and we’ll side with the host in the series finale.