It’s easy to overlook Friday’s meager slate of baseball games after the excitement of Opening Day.
But there’s a lot to like about the pitching matchup between the defending-champion Astros and the White Sox ahead of the weekend.
Houston starter Cristian Javier was one of my best bets to win the AL Cy Young this year, and his stellar showing down the stretch last year was a key reason why.
Here’s our pick for tonight’s game:
Astros vs. White Sox prediction
Over his last 19 appearances, the 26-year-old righty posted a 2.25 ERA and led all qualified AL starters in strikeout rate (34.4 percent) with the lowest zone contact rate (79.1 percent) before dominating in the postseason, too.
Lance Lynn is more of a question mark after a down 2022 campaign, when he posted his worst ERA (3.99) since 2018.
Yet that doesn’t tell the whole story: The 11-year veteran struggled in the weeks after early-season knee surgery, but he posted a 2.43 ERA over the season’s final two months with a strong 75:9 strikeout-to-walk ratio across 74 innings.
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That isn’t to say that Lynn will carry those marks into 2023, but there’s been some quiet buzz around the former All-Star, who finished in the top-six in Cy Young voting each of the three seasons before 2022.
Javier is one of the trendiest bets to win this year, too, and I love the under here before the betting market fully catches up on these two arms.
THE PLAY: Astros-White Sox under 8 (-118, BetRivers)
