Two former All-Stars take the mound Friday when the Houston Astros host the Toronto Blue Jays. Should the under go in your MLB picks?
Toronto Blue Jays vs. Houston Astros
Friday, April 22, 2022 – 08:10 PM EDT at Minute Maid Park
The Houston Astros may have passed their expiry date. Starting the 2022 MLB season at 6-6 (minus-0.77 betting units) is hardly ideal for a team that’s coming off its third trip to the World Series in five years.
But it’s worse than that; the Astros have a run differential of minus-7, giving the 2017 champions an expected win record (aka Pythagorean record) of 5-7. Good thing Houstonians still have the Rockets and the Texans to cheer for... oh.
Oh, dear. And I’m sad to say Gordie Howe won’t be skating through that door anytime soon. But maybe the fans at Minute Maid Park will go home happy this Friday night after the Toronto Blue Jays come to town.
The Jays (8-5, plus-2 runs, plus-0.37 units) are at the back end of their starting rotation, and they’ve opened as +153 road dogs on the MLB odds board at BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review).
The Blue Jays in Mono
Actually, the Jays are beyond the back of their rotation. The loss of Hyun Jin Ryu (forearm) and Nate Pearson (mononucleosis) has Toronto dipping into their bullpen to give Ross Stripling the start Friday night.
Stripling was a promising starter/reliever through his first four years with the Los Angeles Dodgers – he even made the All-Star team in 2018. But something bad must have happened to Stripling in 2020.
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His strikeouts went down, his walks went up, and Stripling got moved to Toronto at the trade deadline. Maybe they’ve figured out what to do with him. Stripling is throwing fewer fastballs and curveballs this year, and relying more on change-ups and sliders for his secondary pitches.
That’s a little bit closer to the formula that brought Stripling early success in Los Angeles; so is his 3.57 FIP, although that’s through a very small sample size of six innings.
Bang on a Can
You’ve probably heard of the other guy starting this Friday. Justin Verlander is back on the mound after missing most of 2020 and 2021 to Tommy John's surgery, and Verlander looks pretty much like his old self, posting a 2.69 FIP in 13 innings of work spread over two starts.
One problem: The Astros only scored a combined four runs in those two games, splitting the pair and leaving Verlander 0.33 units in the red. This will not do.
Houston ranks 14th overall at FanGraphs with 1.9 hitting WAR, which they’d better hope is another case of small sample size if they’re going to win another World Series. Banging on a trashcan lid won’t help this time.
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If that weren’t enough to make us think twice about our MLB picks, FiveThirtyEight like Houston to win Friday’s game 61 percent of the time, for a fair moneyline of –156 according to the very nice BMR Odds Converter.
That falls right into the gap between Toronto at +152 and Houston at –165. Go figure. That 8.5-run total looks pretty tight, too.
But Toronto’s 2.0 hitting WAR isn’t much better than Houston’s, and Heritage Sports has the vigorish at +102 as we go to press. Let’s jump on this for a suitably small amount while the Jays are still without Teoscar Hernandez (oblique), and may the sphere be with you.
MLB Pick: Under 8.5 (+102) with Heritage Sports (visit our Heritage Sports Review)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.
