Oakland (Harden) at Toronto (Cecil) -140 O/U 8.5 
Recommendation: Over

The single quietest streak of the entire MLB season – Oakland’s amazing run of overs since the All-Star break – continues unabated and basically unnoticed by the betting markets.  The A’s 17-1-4 O/U in their 22 games since the All-Star break; a streak that’s very much worth riding again today. 

The A’s offense is in a completely different stratosphere now than it was for most of 2011.  A team that spent the entire first half of the season struggling to produce any offense at all has now plated four or more runs in 17 of their last 18 games.  That includes some particularly strong offensive contests, scoring seven or more on eight different occasions during this span.   
Don’t expect Brett Cecil to shut down the A’s lineup tonight either – Bob Melvin’s squad has been bashing lefties of late, hitting David Price (twice), Francisco Liriano, Charlie Furbush and Duane Below during this extended string off post-break overs.  Meanwhile, Cecil has been hammered three times in his four previous home starts in 2011, entering tonight’s game with an ERA just shy of 6.00 on this field. 

The Blue Jays should have offensive success against Rich Harden; no longer anything even close to the ace hurler he was earlier in his career.  Harden has allowed at least one home run in every start since his return to the big leagues on July 1st.  He’s not eating up innings these days either – only once in six starts has Harden recorded a single out in the seventh.  The Jays averaged five runs per game closing out their road trip and they’ve scored 49 runs in their last nine home games; poised to produce enough offense to cash our over ticket this evening.