2020-08-28 21:10:00 EDT
The Oakland A’s and the Houston Astros meet in an AL West division matchup in MLB action from Minute Maid Park on Friday.
The Oakland A’s come into this one rested after having Thursday’s matchup with Texas postponed after a lot of the protests across the country. Matt Olson leads the A’s in the long ball department with a team-high 10 home runs while Stephen Piscotty has an A’s-high 26 RBIs with Olson and Matt Chapman each boasting 22 RBIs in 2nd and Chapman having 9 home runs. Mark Canha has a .278 batting averaging and Robbie Grossman leads Oakland with a .427 on base percentage and Marcus Semien has a team-leading 32 hits and 137 at-bats this season. Chris Bassitt will start here and is 2-1 with a 2.97 ERA and 28 strikeouts this season. In his career, Bassitt is 2-1 with a 3.51 ERA and 29 strikeouts against Houston.
The Houston Astros come into this one rested as well having not played since Tuesday after a double-header with the Angels that was moved up a day as Houston was preparing for a hurricane that was on the way to the surrounding area. The double dip saw Houston take game one by a final score of 6-3 while game two went the Angels’ way, 12-5. In game one, Jack Mayfield had two RBIs while Yuli Gurriel had a double and an RBI and Josh Reddick added an RBI as well in the victory. Game two saw Dustin Garneau and Abraham Toro each belt a home run while Kyle Tucker went 2 for 3 with a triple and an RBI. Reddick and Myles Straw each had an RBI as well to finish off the scoring for Houston in game two’s loss. Game one saw Cristian Javier get the win on the mound, improving to 3-1 after 5.2 innings of work, allowing three runs while striking out five. Game two saw Brandon Bielak take the loss, allowing three runs while failing to get out of the first inning. Lance McCullers Jr. is expected to start this one and is 2-2 with a 5.74 ERA and 25 strikeouts this season. In his career, McCullers Jr. is 4-2 with a 4.40 ERA and 42 strikeouts against Oakland.
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This is going to be one heck of a series between the two teams that’ll probably make it out of the AL West with the expanded playoff format where the twop two teams of each division make it out plus two wild cards. With that said, Bassitt’s been on for much of the season and while McCullers Jr. had a bumpy patch early on, he’s seemed to rebound from it and I can see a pitcher’s duel coming out of this one. Give me the under here.
