Good job by the Indians as the Friday free play winner, and I’ll try to extend the current streak with another baseball call from the afternoon slate.
923 RED SOX (Buchholz) @ 924 ASTROS (Fiers)
Take: RED SOX +107
It’s way too early to write off the Houston Astros. There’s all kinds of young talent on this team, and we all saw what the ‘Stros are capable of last year. But at the present time, this is a struggling entry and I’m going to try and beat them today.
Every team goes through peaks and valleys, and right now the Astros are definitely fighting it. When the pitching is good, they don’t hit. When the team puts runs on the board, the staff gives them right back. Houston is also just not playing good baseball. There was a glaring blunder last night, when George Springer decided for reasons unknown to try and steal third base with not one out and his team trailing 5-0. That’s just dumb, regardless off whether the steal is successful or not.
The Astros face another potentially difficult obstacle here with Clay Buchholz on the mound for Boston. Buchholz hasn’t exactly been razor sharp out of the gate, but he’s off an okay start. The same cannot be said for Mike Fiers, who has been just plain lousy so far and now has to face a very capable Red Sox attack.
I’m not sure what is happening with Fiers. His velocity is down, and so are his K’s, and by fairly significant margins. Fiers is not walking anyone, so that’s a good thing. But his numbers through three starts tell me that his command is simply not there as opposed to his control. The former is what matters more than the latter, and it appears pretty obvious that Fiers is missing in the middle of the zone, hitters are seeing his offerings very well and the results haven’t been at all pretty. Fiers has surrendered a ghastly 42.4% hard hit rate thus far and six of his offerings have already been launched beyond the boundaries.
Buchholz comes out ahead of Fiers on my pitcher rankings. Although the Boston pen has had some early missteps, they still rate better than the Astros on the relief corps numbers. I’m not sure if Xander Bogaerts will play for the Red Sox today after getting hit on the wrist by an errant Luke Gregerson offering in last night’s ninth inning, but I’ll still have a check mark next to the Boston offense, particularly when factoring in the early season splits. There’s also the present four-game losing streak owned by the Astros. With the price being right enough, I’ll grab the small plus with the Red Sox in this one.
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My 2* MLB Best Bet is loaded for Saturday.