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The Minnesota Twins take on the Houston Astros. Check out our MLB odds series for our Twins Astros prediction and pick.
Chris Archer starts for the Twins, while Luis Garcia gets the call for the Astros.
Chris Archer has been a starter in the Twins' rotation the whole season. While he hasn't been terrible, he certainly hasn't been above-average, either. Archer has not recorded 16 outs (one out in the sixth inning) in any start this year. Five innings has been his longest duration in any 2022 appearance. That has stretched a mediocre Twins bullpen and overworked those very tired arms for Minnesota. Archer has not received very good run support in recent weeks, and as a result, the Twins have lost each of his August starts. Beyond that, the Twins have lost every game Archer has started since late June. The last game Minnesota won in an Archer start was June 25. If Archer pitches four or five innings and gives up two or more runs, he usually creates a game which gets decided in the bullpens, and that often doesn't work out for the Twins. To be fair to him, he did allow just one run in five innings in his most recent start againt the Rangers this past weekend, but the Twins didn't score much and lost 4-3 in a game which went to extra innings tied at 2-2.
Luis Garcia isn't an above-average pitcher, but he is competent. He has thrown 36 more innings than Archer this season in a similar amount of appearances. Both men made their first start of 2022 on April 12. Neither man has been injured very long if at all. Garcia, though, pitches six complete innings a reasonable percentage of the time. He has 11 appearances this season in which he has pitched at least six full innings. He has pitched seven or more innings three times. Those extra innings from the back end of the rotation have provided real value to the Astros.
In terms of regular performance — removed from the matter of eating up innings to save the bullpen — Garcia is and has been ordinary. He pitched to a 4.70 ERA in July and is pitching to a 5.25 ERA in August entering this game. The Astros would like something moderately better than this; they do receive it once in a while, but not regularly.
Courtesy of FanDuel, here are the Twins-Astros MLB odds.
MLB Odds: Twins-Astros Odds
Minnesota Twins: +1.5 (-137)
Houston Astros: -1.5 (+114)
Over: 8.5 (-120)
Under: 8.5 (-102)
Why The Twins Could Cover the Spread
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The Twins keep hitting poorly. They have scored 11 runs in their last six games, and one of those runs was a Manfred Man run (starting the 10th inning on second base). In the first two games of this series against Houston, the Twins have scored four ninth-inning runs — two on Tuesday, two on Wednesday — when they entered the inning trailing by four. They were down 4-0 entering the ninth on Tuesday, 5-1 entering the ninth on Wednesday. Most of their offense this past week has come in meaningless situations.
This might seem like a reason to pick Houston, but one can only continue to emphasize the point that the Twins are performing so poorly that the odds are bound to even out.
Also: Luis Garcia is a pitcher the Twins can attack.
Why The Astros Could Cover the Spread
The Astros have led by four runs entering the ninth in each of the first two games of the series, and have covered on the run line (-1.5) in both games. With the Twins still missing Byron Buxton, why would you make any other pick?
Final Twins-Astros Prediction & Pick
The Astros' wins in the first two games of this series came from Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez, their two best starting pitchers. Luis Garcia is not in their league. That, combined with the Twins' increasing desperation (they very badly need to win in order to stay in the postseason hunt), makes it a lot harder to pick Houston this time, even with Byron Buxton out. Stay away from this game. If you feel you have to go with the Astros, fine, but know you're taking more of a risk in this particular contest.
Final Twins-Astros Prediction & Pick: Astros -1.5
