We've got a pair of All-Star lefties pitching in Houston tonight with Max Fried against Framber Valdez. Fried has been excellent in his last two starts, only allowing one run after a brief skirmish of giving up runs. Valdez comes off seven shutout innings against Colorado in a 4-0 win after losing his previous five starts and allowing all kinds of runs, such as allowing seven to the Tigers on August 20th. The Astros won two out of three games against the Yankees last month, with one of the wins being a 7-1 victory against Fried. However, that was a period in the season when the Yankees were struggling to hit. They're hitting now, winning seven of their last eight. Yankees to win.

Max Fried will likely face eight right handed batters tonight and after having struck out just three last time he faced the Astros, I'm going to bet against a 6th strikeout here. The Yankees southpaw has been significantly better against lefties from a strikeout perspective, tallying a 31% strikeout rate, as opposed to just a 20% rate against righties. The underlying numbers look solid vs. lefties with a swinging strike rate nearing 14%, but that goes down to just 10% to righties, with a called strike + whiff rate about 8-10% lower to righties. The Astros have failed to produce against lefties of late and the strikeout rate has risen, but I still think the 6th strikeout is a bit too high here.