This is a 10* on OAKLAND

Chicago comes in at 80-58 on the season and leads the American League Central by 11 games. Clearly, they are playoff-bound. Oakland’s situation is a lot more dicey. They are 74-64 overall, placing them seven games back of Houston in the AL West and 3.5 games back of the Red Sox for the Wild Card. The A’s losing streak hit four in a row last night with a 6-3 setback against the White Sox. We view tonight as a real “must win” for the Athletics and they probably do as well. Things were looking great on August 12th when the A’s had won seven in a row and were coming off a 17-0 win against Cleveland. They were 67-48 at that time. Since then they have lost 16 of 23 games. While it may seem tough to want to go with Oakland today, just look at the pitching matchup we’ve got on tap. Frankie Montas has a 1.31 ERA and 0.73 WHIP in his last three starts for Oakland. Dallas Keuchel has a 16.00 ERA and 3.11 WHIP in his last three starts for Chicago. That seems like a pretty substantial edge towards the home team. We don’t see the White Sox scoring many runs tonight. They are 22 games above .500 at home. But going into yesterday, they had a losing record on the road. They are 15-38 in their last 53 games as a road underdog. Play on OAKLAND

AAA