Los Angeles Angels vs. Oakland Athletics Betting Lines For May 15, 2012

Ervin Santana would probably like to pick up a bat right about now. Despite pitching well early in the season, Santana has fallen victim to his own team’s offensive woes, receiving an ML-worst 1.57 runs of support this year. Things don’t look to get any better tonight as the Los Angeles Angels face the Oakland Athletics in the second of a two-game series.

The Angels (15-21), failed to score in another loss to the A’s on Monday night, their fourth-straight loss to Oakland. Santana gets the ball tonight as Los Angeles tries to avoid a fifth-straight defeat by the A’s for the first time in five years.

“This team is too good to be shut out as much as we’ve been shut out this season,” manager Mike Scioscia told the Associated Press. “I think we had better at-bats than it’s going to show in the box score. … It’s going to be a grind. There’s only one way out of the hole, and that’s to grind, inch by inch.”

The Angels’ shutout last night was their eighth this year, while no other ML team has been shut out more than four times. Three of them have come in their last five home games.

Santana has been brutalized by the cold bats, failing to get a single run of support in any of his first five starts. He finally got some help in his last outing, a 6-2 win against the lowly Minnesota Twins.

“It was a little bit (frustrating), but I wasn’t thinking about it because I was just trying to do my thing,” Santana told the league’s website. “I don’t have control over other things. I was just taking it easy and trying to take it one game at a time.

“Great feeling. Long time without a lead, it feels great.”

Oakland has manhandled Los Angeles, outscoring it 20-5 over the last four meetings. It beat Santana on April 18, scoring four runs off the righty before chasing him after seven innings.

Bartolo Colon got the win in that game, and will oppose him again tonight. Colon was brilliant in that game, giving up just four hits in eight innings en route to a 6-0 win. He is 3-0 with a 1.64 ERA in five starts against the Angels.

Los Angeles is favored by 1 1/2 runs in Bovada’s Angels vs. A’s Betting Lines, with a -165 moneyline.

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