Talk about a race in the last 3rd of the season. We’re now securely in the back half and there are two AL teams fighting for that first seed and the first-round bye. Those are the Yankees and the Astros. Both are starting series tonight in which they’ll be rightfully heavy favorites and both will be paying close attention to each other. As much as we’d like to bet on the Astros, there’s very little value at the moneyline bet of -190. However, what I can confidently say is this team should be scoring a lot of runs.
The Red Sox starter Nathan Eovaldi has serious talent but can lack some finesse. The talented and experienced hitters that fill the Astros lineup will be able to hit him hard, especially when they know what pitches are coming (only half joking).
The Astros starter Luis Garcia is having a very good season but the last few starts have been tough. He’s given up 12 runs in his last 4 starts (23 innings) and not to the toughest opponents either. The Yankees were a part of that group but so were the A’s, the Royals and the Angels. Not exactly murderers row. The Sox hitting can be streaky but when they get going they’re very good at hitting for average. You can count on 4 runs pretty consistently, which should do the trick tonight.
Red Sox/Astros Over 7.5 | -115
odds at FanDuel