This series was supposed to kick off on Tuesday in Houston, but given the flooding because of Hurricane Harvey, the series will relocate to Tropicana Field—home of the Tampa Bay Rays. Houston Astros will remain the home team in the contests. The teams will continue playing despite the tragedy. Houston will look to avoid distraction as they take on the Rangers, a team that they went 4-15 against last year. They’re already 8-5 against them in 2017.
This series will be contested from Tuesday, August 29, 2017 through Thursday, August 31, 2017 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. Wednesday night’s showdown will be broadcast nationally on ESPN.
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Pitching Matchups
The series will kick off on Tuesday with southpaw Martin Perez pitching for the Rangers and righty Mike Fiers toeing the rubber for the Astros.
Due to injuries to other starters, Perez and Fiers lead their respective teams in innings pitched. Perez is 9-10 in 25 starts, posting a 5.00 ERA in 144 innings. Fiers, meanwhile, is 8-8 in the same number of starts, but his ERA is a much more favorable 4.17.
Interestingly, while Perez has the much higher WHIP, it’s Fiers who has the worse FIP, indicating that luck is the main factor differentiating the results for these two.
Fiers is coming off a very strong outing against a tough, though injured, Nationals’ lineup, allowing just a single run on four hits in seven innings. That was a nice turnaround start for the righty after he allowed 20 runs combined in his previous four starts, spanning 21.2 innings.
Perez’s last start was even better, going seven scoreless against the Angels though, like Fiers, he struggled prior to that. He gave up six runs in six innings in his prior start against the White Sox no less.
As the series continues, we get—arguably—the most interesting matchup in the middle game with righty Andrew Cashner pitching for the Rangers against Houston ace Dallas Keuchel.
Cashner has been excellent for the Rangers. He’s the team leader in WAR and, despite a 7-9 record, has been a consistent bright spot for Texas.
Interestingly, Cashner is pitching to a 3.44 ERA despite a reasonably high WHIP of 1.345 and an insanely low strikeout rate of 4.5 per nine innings. In fact, his strikeout to walk ratio is just 1.29. Given the walks and the lack of strikeouts, the results of his absolute outcomes aren’t good—even with a low home run rate. Thus, it’s not a surprise his FIP is over a run higher than his ERA. In fact, his FIP is slightly higher than Perez’s.
While the sabermetrics don’t like Cashner, he’s produced over 21 starts. That’s more than just a small sample size at this point. He’s tossed 125.2 innings and has induced weak contact and gotten outs.
On the other side, Keuchel’s numbers are more impressive. He’s 11-2 with a 2.58 ERA and 1.071 WHIP. His FIP is a run higher than his ERA, too, but it’s still 3.58 as he’s got a 2.81 strikeout to walk ratio. Of course, Keuchel isn’t a high strikeout guy, either. He, too, focuses on weak contact, but he’s shown he can sit someone down on strikes when needed. He can also keep the ball in the park.
The lefty missed most of June and July and was a bit rusty coming back. He allowed eight runs in four frames against the White Sox in his third game back, but has picked it up since. He’s allowed three runs and 13 hits in his 20.2 innings since that time.
Finally, to wrap up the series, we see the Rangers’ ace in Cole Hamels against Collin McHugh.
McHugh’s pitched just seven games this year given his injured start to the year. He’s been a god-send coming back, helping to deep a starting staff that was slumping. The right-hander has been a solid mid-rotation arm in his career and one that’s been adept at getting the win. He’s 2-2 in his seven starts with a 3.63 ERA.
Hamels, meanwhile, has had his share of injury issues, too. He’s pitched more, tossing 17 games, and is 9-2, but his ERA is very similar at 3.78.
Offensive Breakdown
There are a few key injuries for both teams. The Rangers will be getting Joey Gallo back from the seven-day concussion DL. He’s the big power source along with Mike Napoli and Rougned Odor.
All three sluggers have done little outside the long ball. Gallo is batting .205 in support of his 35 bombs. Napoli and Odor are around the same and not getting batter. Napoli is batting .181 in August, Odor .191.
There is plenty of pop, but also plenty of swing and miss in the Texas lineup, but it’s not all or nothing in every spot.
Elvis Andrus is finally starting to live up to his lofty contract. He came out last year in a big way and is swinging well again in 2017. In August, he’s hitting .350 with 10 doubles. Robinson Chirinos has been great since taking over the top catching spot from Jonathan Lucroy who is now in Colorado. And, of course, for the understatement of the week: Adrian Beltre is just good at baseball.
Flipping things over, the Astros certainly miss Carlos Correa. He was hitting .320 with 20 homers in 84 games before the injury. It’s hard not to miss that from the shortstop position. Despite that, this offense keeps on coming on.
Brian McCann is back from injury, George Springer and Jose Altuve are still MVP type players. The combination of power, speed, versatility and depth that this offense possesses is mind boggling. They’ve outscored the night highest scoring team in MLB by 49 runs and have a .837 OPS as a team.
While Houston’s offense has slowed some in August, it’s still amongst the best in the game; advantage Astros.
Bullpen Breakdown
Joe Musgrove had a tough time in the rotation, but the transition to the pen favors him. The youngster has allowed two runs in 14.1 relief innings in August, striking out 15 and holding the opposition to a .152 average.
He’s not the only hot reliever for Houston. Ken Giles has 21 strikeouts in August. He’s thrown just 12 innings. Others are doing well, too. Really the only ones struggling are the newly acquired Tyler Clippard and Francisco Liriano.
With Matt Bush injured, the relief options for Texas are limited.
The Rangers have Alex Claudio closing out games right now. He can close the door in the ninth, but bridging the gap to him is a mix of the aging Jason Grilli, the young Jose Leclerc and the mediocre Tony Barnette.
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