MLB Regular Season: Cleveland Guardians at Houston Astros Series Preview
AL's Best Visits One of the AL's Worst
It’s pretty jarring to see the Houston Astros in last place in the American League West and as one of just four MLB teams that has yet to reach double digits in wins so far in the 2024 season.
But, at 9-19, that’s where the perennial contenders sit as they welcome in the surprising Cleveland Guardians for a three-game series. Cleveland is 19-9 — a perfect flip of Houston — and still is a sizable underdog for Tuesday’s opener on the Guardians vs Astros odds.
These teams’ seasons have been as close to opposite as it gets. Houston was swept in a four-game series by the Yankees to open the season and hasn’t been able to recover as the Astros have an entire starting rotation on the injured list.
They also haven’t gotten any production from Alex Bregman, Chas McCormick or José Abreu and offseason pickup Josh Hader has really struggled as the Houston closer. Today’s baseball scores can’t avoid the fact that even the Astros are looking up at the Oakland Athletics in the standings.
On the other hand, Cleveland has been one of the best stories in baseball so far. Steven Kwan is leading the AL in hits and runs while Josh Naylor had a 158 OPS+. The Guardians have a top-10 offense in the Majors and their bullpen is in the top-three in most statistical categories.
Add those together, with a solid if unspectacular rotation, and you get a team that is more games above .500 (10) than it has losses (9).
Cleveland Guardians vs Houston Astros 
Day/Time:
Location: Minute Maid Park; Houston, Texas
Astros Need to Feast on Guardians’ Starters
As noted above, Cleveland’s starting rotation has been serviceable which is no small feat considering it lost Shane Bieber to Tommy John surgery a few weeks ago. This series, the Guardians will throw out Carlos Carrasco, Triston McKenzie and Logan Allen against Houston’s Hunter Brown, Justin Verlander and Spencer Arrighetti.
All three of those guys have been hit pretty hard — and have dealt with control issues — so they could have trouble with Houston’s smart and powerful lineup.
The Guardians vs Astros odds reflect how Cleveland may be getting a bit fortunate with their starting pitching results based on the underlying numbers. If there’s a team that can punish subpar starting pitching, it’s the Astros even with Houston’s March and April issues.
Houston’s one major offensive flaw is that they strike out a ton, the most in the AL so far, but Cleveland’s projected starters for this series are not big strikeout guys. That benefits the Astros.
However, due to how good the Guardians’ bullpen is, the Astros have to get on the board early and often. Cleveland’s relief group is second in the Majors in ERA, third in WHIP, third in BB/9, third in K/9, fourth in H/9 and first in HR/9. With Emmanuel Clase as the anchor at the end and swing-and-miss from pretty much every arm, it’s hard to get much across against them.
The Astros have a good shot at scoring plenty well before the Guardians get to use their bullpen and that’s why Houston is one of the better MLB picks today.
Houston May Be Heating Up
The Astros are -168 moneyline and +125 runline favorites for Tuesday’s series opener while the Guardians are +148 moneyline and -145 runline favorites on the Guardians vs Astros odds. While this is largely due to Houston’s reputation as an elite team and the Astros’ talent — even with the injuries and recent underperformance — it is also because they have shown some life as of late.
Houston is coming off an easy two-game sweep of the lowly Rockies in Mexico City which could turn out to be two meaningless wins against a really bad team at a stadium with twice the altitude of Denver’s Coors Field, or it could be what turns the Astros’ season around.
This is a team that really needed some easy wins and to finally get the offense going at the same time it got viable starting pitching. The players on the team said they viewed the Mexico City series as the start of a new season, so to speak.
While those wins weren’t enough to get the Astros out of the basement of the MLB American League standings, they gave a struggling team some reasons to be happy and optimistic. In baseball, sometimes that’s a talented team needs to right the ship.
Take The Over On Tuesday
The run total set for tonight’s game is a relatively high nine runs but you should consider going with the over at -105. Carrasco and Brown — the projected starters — have been replacement-level or worse and Brown, in particular, has been hit hard.
While his last two starts have been a little better, he still has a 9.68 ERA with 32 hits allowed in 17 2/3 innings (to go with 12 walks). That’s just way too many baserunners and the stage is set for two hot offenses to push a bunch of runs across against inconsistent starters.
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