Los Angeles Dodgers vs Houston Astros Predictions, Betting Odds & Picks

Garcia’s 2021 record: (20-14-2)

How to Watch Los Angeles Dodgers vs Houston Astros

Bauer Looks to Keep Dealing

There is some bad news happening right now for every team in baseball that’s not the Dodgers — Trevor Bauer is officially in his groove.

Los Angeles lost three straight Bauer starts at the end of April and early may when the Dodgers were scuffling, but his last two times out he’s been everything the Dodgers expected when they made him the highest paid player in baseball last offseason.

Bauer comes off of win over the rival San Francisco Giants, when he went 6.1 innings and gave up just two hits and one unearned run to go with four walks and a season-high 11 strikeouts.

Bauer ranks in the top 10 in every major category, with his 5-2 record (8th), 1.98 ERA (8th), 0.77 WHIP (3rd) and 88 strikeouts (3rd). Bauer has gone six innings or deeper in nine of his 10 starts and has eight quality starts on the season.

Can Astros Get Back to Their Winning Ways?

Coming into play Tuesday night the Astros coming off of a sweep at the hands of the lowly Texas Rangers to fall out of first place in the AL West, now one game behind Oakland.

Getting blown out last night by Los Angles 9-2 didn’t exactly help matters, either.

And it’s not as if the blame has been all on the offense for not scoring or on the pitching staff for not preventing runs — they just haven’t been able to do both at the same time lately.

They now turn to Luis Garcia, the 24-year-old youngster who has been better than his record indicates — certainly of late. Garcia is 2-3 on the year, with a 3.38 ERA and 1.10 WHIP but is just now finding his form.

Houston lost each of his first seven starts, even though he gave up two earned runs or fewer in five of those contests and three or fewer in all of them. They’ve been able to earn him wins each of his last two starts, going five innings in each game and giving up just three combined earned runs.

But this will largely be about Houston’s offense and its ability to generate any runs off of Trevor Bauer. If they do it will likely be their leftys who have been pretty good against right-handed pitching this year. Yordan ALvarez leads the way in that regard, batting .316 with a .349 OBP and .906 OPS against righties, belting four home runs with 14 RBIs.

Michael Brantley isn’t far behind, hitting .314 with a .372 OBP and .837 OPS.

X-factors to Watch

The people we’re watching in this one are familiar names and some of the best players in baseball, but both haven’t had the season’s thus far that they were hoping for.

For Houston, we’re going to keep our eyes on Jose Altuve. Altuve is heating up of late, going 10-of-31 in the last week, scoring a team-high seven runs in the process. He’s batting a red-hot .333 in the month of May overall with a nearly .900 OPS and four home runs and 11 RBIs.

For the Dodgers the last week on this winning streak, it’s been Max Muncy who can’t be stopped. Muncy is 10-of-18 during that stretch with an other-worldly 1.636 OPS. In fact, Muncy has a great chance at winning National League Player of the Month.

Check out his stats so far in May: .381 average, .500 OBP, 1.262 OPS with seven home runs and 14 RBIs.