The Houston Astros will face the Texas Rangers on Friday, October 20th, 2023 (5:00 PM ET). This will be a pivotal Game 5 in the 2023 ALCS. The series is tied at 2-2, the Rangers have squandered a 2-0 series lead, and they are in desperate need of a win in their own park on Friday. A loss and you would think that the Astros would be claiming the 2023 ALCS when the series switches over to Houston. My Astros vs Rangers prediction is that this will be a defensive battle with few runs scored.
Houston vs Texas Prediction: Latest MLB Headlines
The Astros put up the biggest spread of the series on Thursday. They defeated the Rangers 10-3, the second-biggest margin of victory they've had in the playoffs so far. Jose Altuve, Houston's lead-off hitter, went 3 for 4 in the game with a walk. He also scored three runs in what would have been a huge night for anyone who took him in fantasy pools.
Starting Pitching: Justin Verlander vs Jordan Montgomery
The starting pitching for the game will be Justin Verlander against Jordan Montgomery. Each has been solid so far in their playoff appearances.
Verlander, in two starts, has gone a total of 12.2 innings with just two earned runs against him. Those two runs came earlier in this series against Texas. The Rangers had stronger pitching that day as they blanked the Astros on October 15th. Verlander also pitched well in the final weeks of the regular season. But the veteran enters Game 5 on just four full days' rest. You would think that the Astros would have liked to have given him one more due to his age, but it can't always work that way.
Jordan Montgomery opposed Verlander earlier in this series. He pitched 6.1 innings of shutout baseball on October 15th. He too goes into this game on four full days' rest, the minimum that it seems MLB coaches are willing to give to a starter between starts.
Montgomery did have a bad outing against Baltimore in the divisional series. However, he also had seven shutout innings against Tampa Bay in the Wild Card round. Thus far, he has only appeared in road playoff games this season. But in his last start at home, on September 23rd, he blanked the Seattle Mariners through seven innings. That was a very important game at the time with a lot of pressure as playoff positioning hung in the balance in the waning days of the regular season.
Astros vs Rangers Prediction: Betting Tips
This game screams for a bet on the UNDER, which is up at 8.5 (-110) (bet365). We've seen Verlander come up big so many times in his career that it would be foolhardy to think that he's going to get shelled. Also, Montgomery has so many goose-eggs in his recent starts, that you would have thought that the total runs would be at 7.5 for sure, not 8.5.
The bats for each team could be more alive in this game than before but what if they are? When this matchup took place just days ago, the total runs were just two. Even if that quadruples in this upcoming game, the total runs would still be UNDER the projection. My recommendation is to take the UNDER at -110 (8.5 runs total).
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