It's rare to say this season, but the Toronto Blue Jays are picking up a bit of steam. They'll look to build on some recent success in tonight's series opener against the Oakland Athletics.

The pregame narrative: Toronto is 7-3 in its past 10 games but still sits in the basement of the AL East. I'm backing the Jays on the five-inning moneyline and have props on Danny Jansen and Brent Rooker.

Check out the best Blue Jays picks vs. the Athletics for June 7.

Blue Jays picks vs. Athletics

Best Bet: Blue Jays tie no bet - first five innings (-132)

Chris Bassitt is back in his old digs tonight, pitching in the Oakland Coliseum for the third time since being traded away in 2022.

In his two previous outings as a visitor in the Bay Area venue, Bassitt tossed 8.0 innings apiece and led his team to a pair of victories.

My trust in the Blue Jays' offence is still minimal at best, which is why I'm dealing with the juice of this draw-no-bet market instead of backing Toronto to lead after five innings at +108.

But Oakland is a team that, generally speaking, you want to fade on an F5 market. Or most markets, to be frank.

Just over a month ago, the A's were playing .500 baseball. But the wheels have fallen off, and they've posted an 8-22 record since May 5.

On the season, the A's are a miserable 21-40-3 on the F5 moneyline. That's the most F5 losses of any MLB team so far, per ATS.io.

Hogan Harris is making just his second start of the year for the A's. Since debuting last season, Harris has a 6.40 ERA in 77.1 innings.

I figure this is a reasonable price to back Bassitt, who has a 2.83 ERA since May 1, and fade the A's, who are in a spiral most people figured was coming.

Key stat: Oakland is 2-6-2 on the F5 moneyline in its past 10 games.

Quick picks

Rooker over 1.5 bases (+165): Rooker is a strikeout machine. But when he's not swatting air, he's usually demolishing baseballs.

The 2023 all-star put a slow start behind himself and is slashing .308/.391/.581 since the start of May. He has cashed this bet in 16 of 31 games.

Getting this kind of price on such a productive hitter is definitely enticing. And though he's never faced Bassitt, I think the matchup profiles as a solid one for Rooker.

Bassitt throws a wide variety of pitches, but he uses his sinker exactly 50.0% of the time against righties, per Baseball Savant. Rooker has a .783 SLG against sinkers in 23 at-bats while posting just an 11.1% whiff rate.

Jansen over 0.5 runs (-112): Despite being hitless in four of his past five games, Jansen is still in a good spot to succeed on Friday night.

As the No. 2 hitter in the Jays' lineup, Jansen is bound to see plenty of opportunities to score. I think Toronto will be able to muster up some offence against Harris, and Jansen should be part of that.

The seventh-year catcher has reached base in 14 of 33 plate appearances against lefties this year, which is good for a .424 on-base percentage.

Also, Jansen has scored in 16 of his past 25 starts, posting an .849 OPS in that span.

Picks made at 9:50 a.m. on 06/07/24.