AL West rivals will continue a three-game series on Saturday night when the Houston Astros visit the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim. Houston took Friday's series opener with a 4-2 win to cash in as a -131 favorite. The astros are comfortably atop the division at 85-47, while the Angels are out of contention at 57-75.
This has been a one-sided season series as expected with the Astros leading 10-4 so far.
One key for the Astros right now is getting starting pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. back to full health, and he was sharp on Friday night to lead a win over the Angels. Jeremy Pena opened the scoring with an RBI double in the third before Alex Bregman added a sac fly later in the inning, while both Yuli Gurriel and Yainer Diaz recorded bases-loaded walks in the fifth.
McCullers Jr. went 5.2 innings, allowing two runs on six hits and four walks while racking up seven strikeouts. Rafael Montero struck out two in a perfect ninth for his 11th save. Pena had the only multi-hit game to lead the Houston offense.
Houston is strongly profitable on the money line for the season while going 71-61 on the run line. Overs are a meager 50-77-5 for the Astros, with five of their last six games going over the betting total.
The Astros are above average in scoring at 4.53 ru ns per game on a .741 OPS that is sixth-best in baseball. Houston pitching has been outstanding, ranking second with a 3.03 collective ERA including a mark of 2.93 from baseball's best bullpen.
Yordan Alvarez is having a monster year at the plate, posting a .995 OPS with 31 homers and 80 driven in. Bregman has been on fire the last several weeks, bringing his season numbers to an .848 OPS with 20 homers and 77 driven in.
Luis Garcia will make his 24th start of the season, having gone 11-8 with a 4.14 ERA and 132 strikeouts in 128.1 innings thus far. The 25-year-old beat the Minnesota Twins on Thursday, allowing three runs on five hits and one walk in five innings, striking out five.
Outfielder Michael Brantley (shoulder surgery), utilityman Aledmys Diaz (strained groin) and catcher Jason Castro (knee surgery) are out. Ace Justin Verlander, the frontrunner for AL Cy Young, went down earlier this week with a stra ined calf. Relievers Josh James (strained lat), Ryan Pressly (neck spasms) and Blake Taylor (elbow discomfort) are out.