Baseball fans in general and Oakland Athletics fans in particular get a fantastic matchup to start off the 2011 MLB season. The A’s and Mariners kick off their seasons with a battle between Felix Hernandez and Trevor Cahill. While King Felix has been expected to be great from day one, Trevor Cahill has taken a more roundabout way to his All Star status. Cahill started last season at AAA before getting called up in late April/early May to replace an injured Brett Anderson. By season’s end he had put together ace-like numbers, leading an emerging Oakland A’s pitching staff.
I took a look at the odds for tonight’s and was a bit intrigued by the over/under for the game. Over at Odds Shark, the over/under on tonight’s game is 6 1/2 runs. Given the caliber of pitchers tonight and the pitching friendly nature of the Oakland Coliseum, I think we could see a fairly low scoring game. I mentioned in an earlier prediction that I thought Hernandez would win a pitching duel. Which ever team does win tonight, I’ll go with a final score of 4-2, hitting the under just barely.
We’ll have previews, news updates and recaps for the rest of this weekend’s series. Make sure and also check out Athletics Nation for in-depth A’s discussion.