The Astros have had a rollercoaster season starting with a terrible April, but they remain in the hunt as the take on the Cubs Sunday in the finale of a three game set with the end of a very difficult stretch of their schedule in sight.
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ODDS ANALYSIS
The Astros are an average team on the road and a strong one at home while the Cubs are other worldly at home and yet still very good away from Wrigley Field.
With the exception of a 20-game stretch before the All-Star break, the Cubs haven’t had many struggles this season. They’ve just kept cruising and even after a tough loss have been able to bounce back quickly. The Astros have been much streakier.
Houston is playing very good baseball right now which could lead to a potential upset—particularly with this game down at Minute Maid Park.
The Astros have strung together three straight wins against Texas and Cleveland heading into Wednesday and continue to play well against tough competition.
PROBABLE PITCHERS
With the shakeup in the Astros rotation, Mike Fiers’ start gets pushed back to the Sunday night primetime showdown with the Cubs.
Fiers’ season has been a mixed bag, much like Houston’s season as a whole with moments of poor pitching and stretches of dominance. As a whole, he’s 10-6 with a 4.29 ERA and 1.349 WHIP. Both the ERA and WHIP are elevated from his career norms while his strikeout rate is down from 8.5 per nine innings to seven.
The 31-year old right-hander has lost a bit of the zip off his fastball and has become a bit more hittable, but even so, he’s strung together four solid starts in his last four outings, allowing no more than three runs in each. The Astros have won each of those four games and are 11-4 in his last 15 starts.
For his career, Fiers has done very well against the Cubs, going 3-1 with a 1.71 ERA in five games, including four starts. In 26.1 innings, he’s allowed just 23 base runners while striking out 39.
The veteran right-hander goes up against the elder statesman of the Cubs rotation: John Lackey.
At 37-years old the righty is still going strong. He had the best season of his career last year with the Cardinals and—when healthy—has put up similar numbers. His ERA is at 3.36, which is a bit higher than last year, bus his FIP is nearly identical and his WHIP is actually lower while his strikeouts are up.
According to the stats, Lackey is much more dependable than Fiers, but he did miss nearly a month due to injury. Still, his first game back was a success as he held the Giants to a single hit and earned run over five innings. His pitch count was limited in that game as he throw just 76 pitches, but he’ll be expanded out a bit more on Sunday.
Lackey has pitched in 413 games in his career, but only four have been against the Astros as he was an AL pitcher much of his career when the Astros were a NL team and move to the NL last season, shortly after Houston’s move to the AL.
Still, in those four starts, he’s struggled a bit with a 4.37 ERA and 1.676 WHIP in 22.2 innings though he is 2-1.
LIVE BETTING
The Astros haven’t scored fewer than four runs in six straight games and haven’t scored less than three in 12 in a row. During those 12 games, Houston has averaged 5.2 runs per game.
During the run of success on offense, the Astros have faced some good pitchers, including Corey Kluber, Yu Darvish and Chris Archer.
Overall, Houston is in the middle of the pack offensively with 635 runs scored and a .744 OPS, but the team’s in the top-10 in baseball post All-Star break in runs scored as they’re trending upward.
After a slow start, Alex Bregman has turned into a huge bat and has seven home runs and 27 RBIs through his first 39 games. He’s also providing an OPS of .799, adding to Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, George Springer and Evan Gattis all active and at or above that OPS.
Yulieski Gurriel has been a nice addition as well. He’s hitting .300, though he’s yet to find his power stroke with three doubles and no homers in 43 plate appearances.
For Houston, the young bats are starting to blossom much as they did for the Cubs a season ago. Now, Chicago’s a much deeper offense and with expanded rosters the options are almost limitless for Joe Maddon.
Houston has a top contender for the AL MVP in Altuve who’s added power to his game with 22 home runs and 91 RBIs along with his 38 doubles, .344 average and .406 OBP. On the other side, the Cubs have two of the top contenders for NL MVP with Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant with a .941 and .973 OPS respectively and 64 combined homers and 187 combined RBIs.
QUICK PICK
Lackey is a bit more predictable than Fiers, but otherwise these teams actually match up pretty evenly despite the record mismatch.
Look for the Cubs to get the win if all things are even, but Houston’s shown they can score off good pitching and the team’s got the bullpen clicking right now behind Ken Giles to shut the door if they can carry the lead through the first six.
If all is even, take the Cubs, but if the odds swing to far in Chicago’s advantage take the Astros at home, particularly if given more than a run.
As for the total, we have two strong bullpens with extra help thanks to the expanded rosters. We also have two pitchers throwing reasonably well right now so don’t look for too many runs even with these offenses capable of mashing any given day.
MLB Odds: Cubs 4, Astros 3
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