Oakland Athletics @ Detroit Tigers

An interesting matchup in the first game of Thursday's action, with Oakland travelling to Detroit. Both teams are showing 0.500 records heading into this game, making it a bit more even than we would have liked!

Detroit lead the series 2-1, with 7-3, 1-5 and 9-4 games so far. However, Detroit's record diminishes the more you compare to this game, such as being 10-10 overall, which is made up of 4-6 at home, and 3-5 against AL opposition. The A's are faring better atm, with their 11-11 record being broken down to 8-4 on the road, all of which came against AL teams.

At the time of writing, Bassitt is set to face off against Sánchez as the starting pitchers. Bassitt has only been out one this season as the starter, giving up 9 runs on the road at Toronto. Sánchez is currently 2-2 from his 4 starts, although he is 0-2 against AL teams so far, with 5 runs against in Houston and 10 against Cleveland.

The Tigers have been involved in games with average 8.8 runs per game, which increases slightly to 8.9 when they are at home, but interestingly their runs scored per game is a total of 4.45 which drops to 4.2 when they are hosts, meaning they are giving more runs when at home. Oakland have a run per game average of 7.5, which increases to 8.33 when they are travelling, of which their runs scored per game is an average 3.55, but increases to 4.33 meaning they are scoring more when travelling.

Based on the fact that Detroit allow more runs at home, and Oakland score more freely on the road, I can only really see one option on this game.

Selection: Oakland Athletics Team Total Over 3.5 (37/50; 1.74; -135)