David Troy
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Guardians vs. Astros, 8:10 ET
Today is the day. Yes, the trade deadline is here and both of the teams in today’s game have made moves. The question is, will they make more or another splash? The Guardians have a piece they received in a trade going tonight. The Astros are now on the clock to respond to their division rival getting stud pitcher Max Scherzer.
Cleveland is one of those teams that might be able to still win even with trading away some of their talent. They seem to just spit out pitching, which is about the only thing I can think of that Cleveland actually produces. I mean that about the entire city as well. Somehow they have a stable of young, talented arms that keep them relevant no matter how bad their offense appears to be. This season hasn’t been much different than any of the others. Everyone should just be waiting for them to get on a run late in the season and sneak into the playoffs. Noah Syndergaard, the guy they got in their trade with the Dodgers, is pitching tonight. He’s been pretty terrible for the better part of two seasons now. He was, at one point, pretty decent in Los Angeles, a trend that started with the Angels and moved to the Dodgers. He hasn’t pitched since June 7th, but in his most recent three starts, he allowed at least five earned runs.
The Astros are heating up and kind of forced the hand of the Rangers. That statement could be a bit of a stretch because the Rangers were the best-hitting team in baseball but they were stumbling a bit and losing their grip on the AL West. In any case, the point remains, the Astros are hunting down the Rangers and I still think should be favored to win the division. They did lose two of three to the reeling Rays, but at the same time, the Rays couldn’t be as bad as they had been, so they were due for positive regression. The Astros send out J.P. France to the mound for this game. France has had a very solid season for Houston, but it is worth mentioning that he has an ERA at home that is a full run higher than his average ERA. He did face Cleveland earlier in the season and allowed three earned runs over 6.2 innings. July has been an awesome month for France with 24.1 innings and six earned runs allowed including just one over his past 14 innings.
The Astros are going to demolish the Guardians in this one. I’m going to take the run line in this game for the Astros. It isn’t my favorite bet in the world because I usually reserve run line bets for plus money, but I think they will kill the Guardians and Syndergaard.
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