2020-09-01 20:10:00 EDT
The Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros meet in an NL West division matchup from Minute Maid Park on Tuesday night.
The Texas Rangers will try to bounce back after a 7-2 loss to the Dodgers in their last outing. Jeff Mathis went 2 for 3 with an RBI while Leody Taveras added a pair of hits as well. Ronald Guzman, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Shin-Soo Choo each had a base hit as well to cap off Texas’ offense as a team in the loss. Kyle Gibson ended up with the defeat after allowing five runs on five hits while striking out eight over five innings of work. Luis Garcia will start here and is 0-1 with a 5.40 ERA and 8 strikeouts this season. This will be Garcia’s first career start against Houston.
The Houston Astros will try to keep their momentum going after their weekend series with Oakland was postponed due to a positive COVID test on the A’s roster. Yuli Gurriel leads the Astros with 35 hits and a .292 batting average in 120 at-bats while Kyle Tucker has team-highs of 6 home runs, 29 RBIs but it comes at a cost as he also has a team-high 29 strikeouts. Jose Altuve has 28 strikeouts with a .211 batting average while Alex Bregman has a team-leading .374 on-base percentage this season. Framber Valdez is expected to get the start here and is 3-2 with a 2.35 ERA and 40 strikeouts this season. This will be Valdez’s second career start against Texas.
Texas is 2-12 in their last 14 games overall and 2-10 in their last 12 games as an underdog while the over is 5-1 in their last 6 road games. Houston is 51-18 in their last 69 home games and 59-21 in their last 80 games within the division while the over is 4-1 in their last 5 games overall. Texas is 0-7 in the last 7 meetings between these two teams and 0-9 in the last 9 meetings between these two teams in Houston.
The Rangers have been sliding lately and offense has been hard to come by and that’s not what you want against a guy like Valdez who’s building more and more confidence after each start with the Astros. On the other hand, I’m worried that there could be some offensive rust and the momentum will cool off after having to take a mandatory weekend break. I’ll side with the under once we see a total as I could see a low scoring game here, but my stronger play is on who wins this game and I have that available as a premium pick that you can find here.
