Hunter Brown and the Astros will be facing off against a familiar opponent in the Texas Rangers who have nearly 100 ABs against Brown. The Rangers have also been hitting well recently and have been fairly stingy from a strikeout standpoint recently as well. Ultimately I think Brown lands on fewer than 7 Ks tonight.

Nathan Eovaldi throws his splitter 37% of the time, his curveball 22%, and his split-finger 13% of the time. Yordan Alvarez excels against all three pitch types, posting lofty slugging numbers. Eovaldi has allowed the sixth-most home runs (22) this season. In his career, Alvarez is batting .480 with two doubles and two home runs in 25 at-bats against the veteran pitcher. The slugger went 0-for-4 on Wednesday and had Thursday off. The Rangers' bullpen enters this game severely taxed, having thrown 225 pitches over the past five days. Big night for Yordan and the Astros at Daikin Park. I have a feeling Alvarez goes yard in his first at-bat. Sprinkle that.

Houston is batting .289 with an expected slugging percentage (xSLG) of .502 and an expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) of .361 in 230 plate appearances against Nathan Eovaldi—the third-highest xwOBA of any starting pitcher scheduled to take the mound on Friday. The Rangers' bullpen enters this game severely taxed, having thrown 225 pitches over the past five days. Friday’s matchup will be the Rangers' 8th straight game without a day off. Hunter Brown has electric stuff, holding opponents to a .192 batting average in 47 innings. And his advanced metrics look strong. He has limited the Rangers' hitters to a .216 batting average and a .377 expected slugging percentage over 111 plate appearances. He just needs to limit walks.