The Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros meet in an AL West division matchup in MLB action from Minute Maid Park on Friday night.
The Texas Rangers will look to rebound from their 5-1 loss to the Astros in Thursday’s matchup. Nate Lowe has 30 hits and a .236 batting average with 4 doubles while Adolis Garcia has 6 home runs and a team-high 24 RBIs. Corey Seager also has a team-high 34 hits, a team-high 8 homers and 19 RBIs and Brad Miller has 18 RBIs while Marcus Semien has a team-high 8 doubles and the aforementioned Garcia has 6 doubles as well on the year. Martin Perez is expected to start here and is 2-2 with a 2.01 ERA and 33 strikeouts this season.
The Houston Astros will try to find some consistency after alternating wins and losses in each of their last seven games after their win over the Rangers on Thursday. Michael Brantley has a team-high 37 hits with a .285 batting average while Yuli Gurriel has a team-high 13 doubles and Alex Bregman has 29 hits with 5 home runs and 22 RBIs. Yordan Alvarez has a team-high 12 home runs and 22 RBIs and Kyle Tucker has 7 home runs and a team-high 26 RBIs as well this season. Jeremy Pena also has 7 home runs and 21 RBIs of his own this season. Cristian Javier will start here and is 2-1 with a 3.20 ERA and 30 strikeouts this season.
Texas is 22-57 in their last 79 road games and 8-3 in their last 11 games as an underdog while the over is 4-1-1 in their last 6 games overall. Houston is 7-0 in their last 7 division games and 19-7 in their last 26 games overall while the under is 5-0 in their last 5 home games.
I get the reasoning for backing either side here, but I’m looking at the Rangers here. Texas has been playing fairly well as of late and Martin Perez has been arguably the Rangers’ best starter this season while the Astros are the better team but Cristian Javier was just torched in his last start and the Rangers have done a good job at battling the Astros hard for the most part so far this season. Give me the Rangers here.