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Texas Rangers vs Houston Astros MLB Picks, Odds, Predictions 9/16/2021

Houston Astros (85-60) vs. Texas Rangers (54-91)
September 16, 2021 8:05 pm EDT
The Line: Texas Rangers +235 / Houston Astros -275; Over/Under: -8.5
(Get latest betting odds)

The Houston Astros and the Texas Rangers meet in an AL West division matchup in MLB action from Globe Life Field on Thursday night.

The Houston Astros will look to build on their 7-2 win over the Texas Rangers last time out. Jake Meyers and Chas McCormick each had two RBIs with Meyers adding a two-run home run. Marwin Gonzzalez and Kyle Tucker each had a solo home run with Tucker adding three hits with a double and Yordan Alvarez had a double with an RBI as well to finish off the scoring for the Astros in the winning effort. Yuli Gurriel and Jose Altuve each had a pair of hits as well to finish off Houston’s offense as a team in the win. Jose Urquidy got the win to improve to 7-3 on the year after allowing one run on two hits while striking out six over six innings of work. Framber Valdez will start here and is 10-5 with a 3.26 ERA and 109 strikeouts this season.

The Texas Rangers will try to bounce back from their loss to the Astros on Wednesday. Nate Lowe and Yonny Hernandez each had an RBI to make up the scoring for the Rangers in the loss, while Willie Calhoun had two hits with a double and Brock Holt added a triple as the Rangers mustered up just four hits as a team in the loss with the rest of the lineup batting 0 for 20 with 7 strikeouts in defeat. Kohei Arihara took the loss, falling to 2-3 on the year after allowing six runs on eight hiw over four innings of work. Glenn Otto will start here and is 0-1 with a 6.92 ERA and 16 strikeouts this season.

Houston is 14-5 in their last 19 Thursday games and 7-3 in their last 10 games as a favorite while the over is 1-0-3 in their last 4 games as a road favorite. Texas is 7-3 in their last 10 games overall and 18-38 in their last 56 division games while the over is 2-0-2 in their last 4 games as a home underdog.

I could try to make a case for the Rangers as a home dog, but we’re at the point in the year where teams like Houston need to keep winning and accomplish that more often than not, while the teams like the Rangers, who have been done for a while, are simply taking stock of what they have and the pieces in their lineup for next season. I also didn’t like what I saw from Otto last time out and Framber Valdez is one of the more underappreciated pieces in Houston’s rotation in my opinion. Give me the Astros -1.5 here.

Chris Ruffolo's Free Pick: Houston -1.5

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Chris Ruffolo

Chris joined the Sports Chat Place team in August 2016 and has a proven system that combines multiple analytical and situational statistics and trends to give out thousands of winning picks over the last three years with winning records across all of the top leagues, Follow Chris Ruffolo on Twitter @ruffthepickdawg

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