Athletics at Mariners 8/1/20 - MLB Picks & Predictions

The Oakland Athletics travel on the road to the T-Mobile Park to take on the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners come in having won two straight games to take the series off of the LA Angles led by their offense winning 10-7 and 8-5 to improve their record on the year to 3-4. The Angles were swept in a two-game series by the Rockies losing 5-1 and 8-3 to drop their record on the season back to .500 at 3-3.

The Athletics will send out the 35-year-old right-hander Mike Fiers to attempt to shut down the Mariners. Fiers pitched 4 innings, allowing 7 hits and 4 runs. Fiers didn’t strike out or walk anybody in his opening start. Fiers arguable had the best season of his career last season, going 15-4 with a 3.90 ERA and has been a solid MLB starter for the last decade.

The Mariners are expected to send out Yusei Kikuchi who opened his season on the road against the Astros, arguably the toughest place to start a strange MLB season. Kikuchi pitched 3.2 innings striking out 4 and walking 4, allowing 5 runs on five hits. Kikuchi was solid last year starting 32 games going 6-11 with 5.46 ERA in his MLB rookie season.

The Mariners have been a surprise force on the offensive end in the MLB this season coming in with a .260 team batting average and averaging 5.1 runs per game. A huge boost for the Mariners this season so far has been right fielder Kyle Lewis; Lewis is batting .448 which ranks 5th in the MLB and has hit two home runs and driven in 7 runs both which lead the team.

The Athletics come in with a team batting average of .207 on the season and averaging just 3.5 runs per game but still boast a good lineup and will likely eventually right the ship. With stars such as third baseman Matt Chapman, star first baseman Matt Olson, and Marcus Semien it seems hard to believe the Athletics continue to struggle at the plate.