Yankees vs Athletics Odds, Pick Today | MLB Predictions Thursday

The Yankees will take on the Athletics on Thursday night in what will be the deciding game of the series. New York has taken two of the first three from Oakland and now sits atop the AL East standings at 17-8 while the A’s have dropped seven of their past nine matchups and are 9-16.

Thursday’s matchup will see two left-handers on the mound to begin the game, but one of them has been clearly better than the other this season.

Let’s dive into my Yankees vs. Athletics pick.

Nestor Cortes will be taking the mound for the Yankees tonight. Cortes has been solid for the Yankees this season, putting up a 3.41 ERA, 2.74 xERA, and 3.19 FIP. 

He has been above average in most metrics this season. Cortes is 88th percentile in BB% and 56th percentile in K%. Looking at his batted ball metrics, he ranks 89th percentile in Barrel% allowed and 69th percentile in Hard Hit % allowed. 

The Yankees offense has been up and down this season. They are 13th in wOBA and 8th in wRC+. Where they excel is their plate discipline. The Yankees are 1st in the league in walk rate at 11.4% and have the 9th-lowest strikeout rate. 

They are 10th in Barrel%, 15th in HardHit%, and 8th in average exit velocity. To this point they have played like an average to above average offense, but with the names in this lineup they have left you wanting more.

Today they will take on Alex Wood and left-handed pitchers have been a bit of an issue for this offense. The Yankees are 18th in wOBA and 16th in wRC+ against lefties. They have an ISO of just 0.094 (27th) against southpaws as well. This may hamper the Yankees’ offense today, but luckily for them, Alex Wood has struggled mightily this season.

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Through 21.2 innings pitched this season, Alex Wood has a 7.89 ERA with an xERA of 6.45 and FIP of 5.32. Those underlying numbers are a bit more promising but not by much. Wood ranks 116th out of 118 pitchers with 20+ IP this season in Stuff+ with a putrid mark of 74. 

Wood’s percentile rankings are not great in almost every category. He is 6th percentile in exit velocity allowed, 12th percentile in hard hit rate, 8th in barrels, and 8th in fastball velo. He is 10th percentile in xwOBA and 12th in xSLG. There was a time where Alex Wood was a reliable starting pitcher but that does not look to be the case anymore.

Against lefties the A’s are 20th in wOBA and wRC+ this season. They strike out at the 6th highest rate and walk at the 10th-lowest rate in the league from this side of the plate. 

This doesn’t look great until you realize that this is Oakland’s better side of the platoon split. Overall this offense is 28th in wOBA and 26th in wRC+ with the highest strikeout rate in the league (27.8%).

Alex Wood has struggled this season and while the Yankees aren’t particularly good against left-handers, I trust them to be able to put up some runs against Wood.

Through Wood’s five starts he has allowed three or more runs in four of them, failing to go more than five innings. For this reason, I am looking towards the first five innings lines to bet against Wood’s success.

New York’s team total for the 1st five innings is 2.5 runs, which can be bet at -115 at the moment. I believe that they will be able to get to at least three runs against Wood tonight as they look to win this series and I would take this to -125.

Pick: Yankees Over 2.5 Runs First 5 Innings (-115)

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