Oakland Athletics @ Houston Astros Matchup Preview - August 14th, 2022

Sunday the Oakland Athletics (41-73) will battle the Houston Astros (74-41). Oddsmakers peg the Astros as the huge favorite with an implied win probablity of 71%, leaving the Athletics with a 29% chance to record a win. Based on the current odds the Athletics have an implied team total of 2.85 compared to 4.65 for the Astros.

Oakland Athletics Insights

• Cole Irvin's 1978 rpm fastball spin rate this year ranks in the 2nd percentile among starters.

• The Houston Astros have just 1 same-handed RP in their bullpen, so Tony Kemp has a strong chance of never losing the platoon advantage against the 'pen all game.

• Tony Kemp hits a lot of his flyballs to center field (41.7% — 100th percentile) and faces the league's 8th-deepest CF fences today.

Houston Astros Insights

• Given that flyball pitchers are least effective against groundball hitters, Cristian Javier (46.5% FB% per THE BAT projections) will be a bit disadvantaged in this game with 4 GB hitters in Oakland's projected lineup.

• Yordan Alvarez has been lucky this year, posting a .424 wOBA despite THE BAT X estimating his true talent level to be .380 — a .044 gap.

• The Houston Astros projected batting order projects as the best of all teams on the slate.

Betting Trends

• The Houston Astros have hit the Game Total Under in 61 of their last 103 games (+19.20 Units / 17% ROI)

• The Oakland Athletics have hit the Game Total Under in 57 of their last 106 games (+8.50 Units / 7% ROI)

• Alex Bregman has hit the Runs Over in 12 of his last 15 games (+10.00 Units / 64% ROI)