The Tampa Bay Rays and Houston Astros went Under last night. That’s still the correct choice for Thursday’s MLB picks.
Thursday, September 30, 2021 – 7:10 PM EDT at Minute Maid Park
So it was written, so it came to pass: Drew Rasmussen and Luis Garcia drove the Under to the pay window in Wednesday’s game between the Tampa Bay Rays and Houston Astros. Other players helped, I suppose – at least some of them. Houston coughed up three unearned runs, but they also didn’t score any, falling 7-0 (Under 8.5) as –140 home faves on the MLB odds board. Delicious.
Now we get to pound the Under again for Thursday’s MLB picks. The same two teams will meet again at Minute Domestic Worker Park, and this time, we truly don’t know who will pitch for Tampa as we go to press. Luis Pitino, who had been considered for Wednesday’s start, ending up throwing two innings of relief in support of Rasmussen. The Astros will send Lance McCullers (3.47 FIP) to the mound, and the total is still 8.5 runs on the overseas market; let’s play two, if our listed online sportsbooks come up with the same over/under or higher.
We do know plenty about McCullers. One week ago, we had the temerity to fade the veteran north paw when Houston visited the Los Angeles Angels – not because of McCullers, it was just too good of a price with the Angels at +161. They were bet down to +144 by game time, but they still came through for us with a 3-2 victory, all three runs charged to McCullers over six innings of work.
Technically, that was a quality start for the former All-Star. But here we are with McCullers close to break-even this year at 0.84 betting units on a team record of 16-11 (with the Over at 16-11), and he’s about to face the No. 3-ranked batting order in the majors at 28.1 WAR, as per FanGraphs. We mentioned yesterday how Tampa has the best bullpen in baseball; Houston ranks No. 12 overall at 3.6 WAR. Not great, but good enough for our purposes.
If there’s a flaw in our cunning plan, it’s that Tampa Bay won’t have anyone as capable as Rasmussen available for Thursday. Tyler Glasnow (Tommy John surgery) isn’t walking through that door; he’s the only Ray with a better “rolling game score” than Rasmussen at FiveThirtyEight.
We’re not even going to speculate what manager Kevin Cash has up his sleeve, other than the obvious need to massage his rotation for the start of the playoffs. Anyways, as we said, Tampa’s bullpen is No. 1 in the majors, and Thursday’s forecast calls for more rain over Houston... oh, shoot, I forgot they’ve got a retractable roof. That was silly of me – I apologize profusely. But we’re still going to recommend the Under for this contest. It’s just the right thing to do.
MLB Pick: Under 8.5 (+100) with BetOnline (visit our BetOnline 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.