Indians vs. Astros Pick
Can the Cleveland Indians earn another upset win over the Houston Astros when the two teams meet up this afternoon at 4:10PM ET?
According to oddsmakers at Bovada.lv, the Astros are the slight favorite at home today, as they are getting odds of -125 to win. The Indians are listed with a money line of +105, while the over/under total for the game is set at 9 runs.
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The Indians will be sending Mike Clevinger (1-1, 2.61 ERA) to the mound today to face Mike Fiers (1-1, 5.75) of the Astros. Fiers has been somewhat shaky this season, allowing 23 earned runs and 16 home runs in 36 innings of work. He has a WHIP of 1.47 due to 15 walks. Clevinger has just two starts and a brief relief appearance earlier in the week. He has given up three earned runs in 10.1 innings. He has nine walks and 11 strikeouts.
Cleveland took the series opener, 5-3, on Friday night. The Indians have now won three of four meetings with the Astros this season. Cleveland comes into today’s game at 21-19 overall and 13-9 on the road. Houston holds a 29-13 record overall and 14-7 mark at home.
Houston took a surprising loss at home on Friday night as Charlie Morton struggled on the mound. He allowed four earned runs and eight hits in just 5.1 innings of work. Trevor Bauer wasn’t much better, allowed three runs and five hits in 5.2 innings for Cleveland. However, he did strikeout nine and that allowed his bullpen to pitch 3.1 scoreless and hitless innings. Lonnie Chisenhall had the go-ahead home run and added a sacrifice fly in the eighth to lead the Indians to the win at the plate. No Astro had more than one hit. Josh Reddick and Carlos Correa both homered for Houston.
The Astros can’t feel great about Fiers taking the mound, but Cleveland also has an unknown in Clevinger. He has limited time on the mound and has walked a lot of batters in that span. His ERA is solid, but he doesn’t pitcher very far into games. With the Indians using a number of relievers on Friday, their bullpen could be thin today. I think the Houston bats take advantage of that, while Fiers does enough on the mound to help Houston get the win.
MLB DAILY PREDICTION: HOUSTON ASTROS -125