DAVE ESSLER
Here’s how I am betting this game.
2* Houston F5 and 1* Yankees +1.5 RL for the full game.
931 HOU (-115) vs 932 NYY
FIRST FIVE INNINGS
I am not going to over think this one. Indeed, Keuchel has owned the Yankees and the Astros hit Tanaka and Keuchel is on three days rest and so forth and so on. BECAUSE he is on three days’ rest I can only trust him for five innings. One we get to the playoffs, experience matters, and of course the Yankees have plenty. I expect that Houston will come out unfazed early on and score a couple – and that the Yankees won’t “get to” Kuechel every early. However – when the game is close later on – that’s when the Astros start “thinking” and the “Yankees” and their crowd, in October, either win or make it a very close game. The only hesitation I had here was the Yankees pen down the stretch – but three games in two days against the Orioles, and they didn’t use their “A” team a lot – Betances for a bit – and we’ve got them having been at home or on the East Coast, while the Astros were in Arizona and couldn’t close it out sooner. With New York sitting Ellsbury, McCann (a far better LHH than RHH, as Gardner, he is basically conceding that lefties won’t (they never have) hit Kuechel. That just means I like this bet better.
932 NYY RL 1.5 (-170) vs 931 HOU