Athletics vs. Rangers Tuesday MLB odds: Top prospect Shea Langeliers expected to make Oakland debut

The rebuilding Oakland A's have been a hard watch this season. They're 34 games under .500 and with a minus-137 run differential. They enter Tuesday's game at the Texas Rangers on an MLB-high nine-game losing streak, but they've called up their top prospect in catcher Shea Langeliers. The Rangers are -125 at Caesars Sportsbook.

Langeliers was part of the package acquired from Atlanta this offseason in the Matt Olson trade. The 24-year-old Langeliers is ranked as the No. 28 overall prospect in the sport by MLB.com. He's Oakland's highest-rated prospect and the fifth-highest catcher overall. The ninth pick in the 2019 draft was batting .283 with 19 home runs and 56 RBI in 92 games with Triple-A Las Vegas of the Pacific Coast League. Langeliers was named MVP of the Futures Game during All-Star weekend in Los Angeles in July. He has a power grade of 60 and arm grade of 70 on the 20-80 scale.

It will be interesting how manager Mark Kotsay handles Langeliers' workload. Sean Murphy (.244, 13 HRs, 48 RBI), arguably Oakland's best player, is a catcher. Therefore Langeliers might play more at DH than behind the plate. His first-big league-at bat should come against the Rangers' Kohei Arihara, who is making his 2022 debut. The right-hander was 2-4 with a 6.64 ERA in 40 2/3 innings last year.

The A's need all the offensive help they can get. They are last in the majors with a .214 batting average, 29th in runs (388) and 27th in homers (98). No regular has a better average than Murphy's .244. During the nine-game skid, Oakland has scored more than three runs only three times.

It's the team's third losing streak of nine or more games this year. The other times in Oakland history the A's had three losing streaks of eight or more games in one season was in 1978 and 1979.

Oakland also called up infielder David MacKinnon from Triple-A, placed outfielder Ramon Laureano on the injured list and waived outfielder Stephen Piscotty. 

Which Fantasy Football sleepers, breakouts and busts should you target and fade? And which QB shocks the NFL with a top-five performance? Join SportsLine now to get Fantasy Football cheat sheets for every single position, all from the model that called Jonathan Taylor's huge season, and find out.