Yankees vs Astros Odds, Prediction | Today’s Pick

The Astros looked as if they were rebounding from their poor start, but they have now dropped their last four matchups, including the first two in this series. Houston will need to get a win to avoid getting swept and digging a deeper hole.

On the other side, the New York Yankees sit at 25-13 and are tied for the lead in the AL East. They enter this matchup with momentum on a five-game winning streak.

Find my Yankees vs. Astros prediction and MLB betting preview below.

Marcus Stroman will be the Yankees’ starting pitcher tonight. After starting the season on fire, Stroman has come back to earth over his last handful of starts. He turned in two quality starts with six innings pitched and zero earned runs in his first two outings but has failed to get more than 5.1 innings in a game since.

Through 37 innings, Stroman has a 3.41 ERA with a 4.24 xERA and 4.81 FIP this season. His Stuff+ of 94 ranks 73rd out of 117 pitchers with 30+ IP this year. He also ranks 113th in Location+ and 109th in Pitching+ among this subset as well.

Stroman isn’t known for his elite stuff, as evidenced by these numbers. He has just a sixth percentile Fastball Velocity and his Strikeout Rate, Whiff Rate, and Chase Rate are all below league average. He has gotten by on limiting hard contact and inducing ground balls, as he ranks in the 91st percentile in Ground-ball Rate, 77th percentile in Hard-hit Rate Allowed and 66th percentile in Barrel Rate Allowed.

One glaring issue that Stroman has had this year is that he is walking batters at a higher than usual clip. Stroman’s career Walk Rate is 7.1%. However, last season he had his career-high Walk Rate at 9.0% and has posted a 12.4% Walk Rate to this point in the season, which ranks eighth-highest in the league.

Stroman’s Fastball Velocity has been in a downtrend over the last five seasons, now sitting at just 91 mph. His better than average Hard-hit Rate Allowed is the outlier when compared to his previous seasons. Any time that Stroman is facing a strong offense such as Houston’s, I’ll be fading this 33-year-old who looks to be on the decline.

Despite their record, the Astros’ offense has been a bright spot this season. Houston ranks eighth in wRC+, eighth in wOBA and eighth in Slugging Percentage this season. Their Statcast numbers back this up as they are sixth in Average Exit Velocity and Hard-hit Rate.

Houston’s xBA of .263 according to Baseball Savant is the third-highest mark in the league. This could be due to their league-best 16.9% Strikeout Rate, which is 1.4% lower than the next best squad.

The Astros rank 24th in Ground-ball Rate this season, which may pose a problem for Stroman, who relies on ground balls. If Stroman can’t rely on the ground ball or strikeouts to get him out of any potential jam, Houston may have the perfect storm to put some runs on the board.

With Houston’s struggles on the mound and the Yankees’ strong offense, I’m not looking to take the Astros outright here. Instead, I like making a play on their offense facing off against Marcus Stroman, which I believe leans in their favor.

My favorite play on this game is Marcus Stroman Over 2.5 Earned Runs Allowed. I believe this has value at +105 and I would play it to -108.

Pick: Stroman Over 2.5 Earned Runs (+105 at Draftkings)