Ride With Rangers At Home

Astros vs. Rangers, 2:05 ET

I'm not sure how many of you are reading this from your work desk, but hopefully not too many. Yes, it is the day before the best day of the year, the Fourth of July. Hopefully, today is the observed holiday for most of you, but we have two organizations right now that do not have the day off. The Astros head to Arlington for a matchup with the Rangers.

The Astros are somewhat treading water this year with their average record. I suppose with the recent excellence they've shown over the past few years, it is hard to expect anything from them other than being at the top of the division. Right now, they aren't though as they are looking up at the Rangers and being chased from behind by an inspired Angels team. This won't be a cakewalk this year for them, but I do expect they still have a good chance to take the division by the end of the season. Why? Most of it has to do with the consistency of their starting pitching. This year, one of the starters they can rely most on is Cristian Javier. The only issue is you would much rather have Javier pitching at home with his 3.00 as opposed to his 4.40 ERA on the road. He has allowed 10 earned runs over his last nine road innings. The Rangers haven't had much success against him with a .205 batting average over 112 at-bats.

Javier is a very good pitcher, but the Rangers have a solid chance to do damage against him. (Photo by Christopher Pasatieri/Getty Images)

The Rangers have been the shock of the year in my opinion. Sure, they added two big-name starters before the season, but that doesn't reflect just how great they've been offensively. Last year the team was 16th overall and this year they lead the league in hitting. That's a pretty significant jump. Sure, the season isn't over, but doing it through half of a season is still pretty solid. They have 500 fewer hits this year than last year, but still 80 games remaining. All this to say that they are playing very well on the offensive end. Their pitching overall has improved too. They have Martin Perez taking the ball for them. He has been decent overall, but his home starts have been great. He has only made six of his 16 starts at home, but he has allowed eight earned runs in 37.2 innings. Compare that with the 35 earned that he allowed over 52.2 innings. In fact, he has allowed just four earned runs over his last 19 innings. He faced the Astros once already this season and he allowed two earned runs over five innings on the road. But, the Astros have been fairly successful in other games against Perez getting 57 hits in 192 at-bats.

I think the best option here is to ride the trends a bit and take the Rangers at home in this game. Javier is a guy I usually like to back, but I think it makes more sense for us to fade him today. I'm going to back the Rangers at -105.

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