BEST LINE: Pinnacle +164

The Astros are a pesky group that remain undervalued. Indeed they’re young and have some flaws but they make up for it with their enthusiastic and competitive nature. The Astros have won five of their past seven. In those five wins they have scored 32 runs and they’ve added a strong running game to their arsenal (they lead the majors with a 14% stolen base opportunity). With a take-back like the one offered here and with Colin McHugh going, the Astros once again offer up some nice value. McHugh is 2-2 with 3.48 ERA after five starts. He has a strong BB/K rate of 10/34 in 31 innings. His WHIP of 1.06 and high strikeout rate is fully supported by his elite 14% swinging strike rate. In two road starts, McHugh’s ERA is 1.38 and he’s accomplished all of this with an unlucky strand rate of just 68%. No question, the risk is worth the reward.

That brings us to Jered Weaver. Weaver has been profiled by us as a gamble in recent years due to his declining four-seam fastball velocity and corresponding dip in strikeouts. In 2010, Weaver’s four-seamer was 90.1 MPH. In 2011, it dipped to 89.2 followed by 88.0 in 2012, 86.8 in 2013 and this year it’s at 86.2. If Weaver had a groundball pitch in his profile we could understand the strong stats he’s posted, but that isn’t the case. Weaver’s groundball/fly-ball split is an uninspiring 37%/48%. He has posted a near-50% FB% in four of the past five seasons and his line drive rate trend suggests that he is being hit harder and harder: 16%, 19%, 21%, 22%. Weaver has an ERA of 3.14 after nine starts but that ERA is NOT supported by his declining skills. For whatever reason, Weaver has been able to out-pitch is skills for years and it’s just one of those anomalies that has no explanation other than extreme luck. Perhaps Weaver will thrive again tonight but it’s worth noting that he faced the Astros in Houston in his second outing of the season and they got to him for five ER in 5.2 IP. Frankly, we don’t care what the surface stats say. The beneath the surface stats, that eventually always catch up, say that Jered Weaver is a very average pitcher in this league and we’ll continue to fade him when he’s overpriced, as he is here.