August 25th Game #133 Preview: Angels @ Astros

Angels (63-69) @ Astros (84-47)

The Angels freefall over the past 2 or 3 weeks has been quite painful. They will try to lick their wound and leave Houston WITHOUT getting swept. Good riddance Texas! The Angels, however, are not quite done in Texas as they have a series in Houston again toward the end of September.

It’s not even just that the pitching is bad - it’s that the Angels have also lost a LOT of close games and have the bases loaded twice in yesterday’s matchup - only to pull up empty both times.

Game 2 studs and duds:

Angels LOB: 10

GAME 3

(R) Jaime Barria (6.35) v. (L) Framber Valdez (5.58 ERA)
Sunday, Aug 25th @ 11:10AM

Summary:

Jaime Barria will be facing the Astros for the first time in 2019. He fared well against the Astros in 2018 with a 2.57 and 0 home runs allowed over 21 innings. At Minute Maid Park in 2018, Barria allowed just 1 run over 11 innings. Of course this isn’t 2018 anymore, but Barria has been more promising as of late with 3 runs or less in his last 5 starts.

Framber Valdez has had a rocky year over his 50 innings. The Angels faced him in his last major league appearance back on July 15th and scored 7 runs (4 earned) over 4 innings. Valdez pitched much better against the Angels in 2018, but like Barria - this is a whole new season.

Current Standings

Notes/Credits:
(Pitch tracking data from baseballsavant.mlb.com)
(Splits from FanGraphs Splits Tool and Baseball Reference)
(Standings/odds from fivethirtyeight.com)