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Houston Astros @ Tampa Bay Rays
Tropicana Field
HOU -239
O/U - 7.5
Series: HOU 2-1
Welp, the Rays fought hard to win Game 3 only to have to face Justin Verlander in Game 4 and if they win that? Gerrit Cole awaits in Game 5. The Rays were a strong home team this year at 48-33 and as we saw in Game 3 they can hit bombs. Verlander has given up a LOT of homers this year; 36 to be exact. So don’t completely count them out.
Pitching
The Rays are going with the trend that they really started last year and the rest of the league adopted -- the opener. Diego Castillo will start the game and the Rays will deploy whomever they need after that. Only two pitchers -- one being their starter -- threw more than an inning on Monday, so his bullpen is fresh in this one. Castillo had a strong campaign with Tampa Bay this year pitching to a 3.24 ERA, but it’s likely we see him max out at two innings before turning the ball over to the rest of the staff.
We already mentioned Darth Maul Verlander is ready to close this one out and throw a game much like he did in Game 1. If you had to guess which month(s) Justin Verlander had his best ERA in throughout his career could you? Yeah, you got it. September and October. The former Cy Young is lights out in primetime. It is interesting to note that he is pitching on three days rest, so that does help Tampa Bay out a bit.
Batting
The Rays have played four postseason games thus far and twice they’ve hit four homers in a game. We mentioned it up at the top that Verlander has given up some power this year, so it wouldn’t shock me to see one of these juiced baseball’s leave the yard. Right-handed hitters belted 19 while lefties hit 17. The Rays lineup has a lot of pop against righties, as five-of-nine batters notched a .330 wOBA or better against RHP this year and seven of nine hit double-digit homers off of them.
If we want particular players, Austin Meadows and Brandon Lowe are the two most likely to do serious damage. Ji-Man Choi , however, in the three hole is very cheap on both FanDuel and DraftKings and hit 17 HR while posting a .362 wOBA vs. RHP this year. Willy Adames is hitting over .500 through the first four games of this postseason as well, so you can use him as another value option in your showdown lineups.
On the Houston side, there really isn’t any fading of Jose Altuve . He’s the seventh most expensive hitter on DraftKings showdown slate and yet has homered in two of three games and we know his ability to reach first and steal a bag is extremely high. Yordan Alvarez and Alex Bregman have both hit in all three games, with Bregman homering and swiping a bag while Alvarez has notched two multi-hit contests. There is a reason as to why Houston is favored and they won the most games in baseball this year. They can flash elite pitching and hitting at the same time.
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