Last night, one of the MLB’s brightest-shining rookies made history for the Athletics with one of the greatest single games in the history of professional baseball. The A’s won that contest on the road 15-3 over the Houston Astros in a blowout and took a win in this series. With a sweep on the horizon on Saturday evening, will the A’s continue this little run, or can the home team salvage a game against their AL West foe?
Here’s an Astros vs. Athletics prediction and pick on DraftKings Sportsbook for Saturday’s contest.
Astros vs. Athletics prediction, preview
As I said in the write-up for yesterday’s matchup, “Shoutout Nick Kurtz.” I wrote about how excellent the rookie has looked this season and picked him to tally multiple hits, but if I’d known he’d play the single greatest game in MLB’s long and storied history, I’d have taken an even juicer line! Still, the first baseman went a perfect 6-for-6 with an absurd six runs and eight RBI with four homers — he tied the single-game total bases record with 18 and became the 20th player to ever bash four long balls in one outing. It’s not hard to see why the Athletics won last night, but can they keep it going at 44-62?
It doesn’t look easy against a 60-44 Astros squad that still sits 4-4 after the All-Star break despite having 18 players on IL at the moment, including eight starting pitchers. Ace right-hander Hunter Brown (2.57 ERA, 0.99 WHIP, 144 SO) takes the mound in Houston tonight and should get the better of most Athletics batters not named Kurtz or Jacob Wilson. He gives the ‘Stros a distinct advantage against Jacob Lopez (4.60 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 75 SO) who limited hits but looked quite homer-prone with five blasts given up over his last four games , though he’s shoving with an 11.13 K/9 on the year.
Houston remains without some of their star everyday contributors like Jeremy Pena and Isaac Paredes, but surely their usually-strong pitching staff won’t collapse for the second straight game. I’d expect a rebound back to form tonight as they lean on their arms to win, especially Brown.
Astros vs. Athletics pick, best bet
DraftKings Sportsbook lists the Astros as -194 favorites to win on the Moneyline on Saturday evening. The Athletics are +157 underdogs on the Moneyline with a run total of 7.5.
While I do believe Houston wins this game, it’s a little scary taking a game line that involves them after the momentum swing that took them from a road sweep over the Arizona Diamondbacks to… whatever happened at Daikin Park over the last two nights. With that in mind, we’re shifting gears to a Hunter Brown pick in this outing!
Houston’s ace ranks fourth in strikeouts among qualified pitchers this year as well as ninth in WHIP and 10th in ERA. The Athletics have the sixth-most strikeouts overall, which certainly sets Brown up for a big day thanks to his 92nd-percentile K% as well as chase rate and whiff percentages in the top 75th percentile or better. The righty went for at least eight punchouts in 12 of 20 starts this season, so I like him to do so once more on Saturday at +110 odds.
Best bet: Hunter Brown 8+ strikeouts (+110)
Click the odds on these bets to tail!
