Houston Astros vs. Detroit Tigers series preview

Opening Day and weekend have officially come and gone. The Astros are 2-2 and some people are acting like the sky is falling when there are still 158 games left in the season. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Here is the Houston Astros vs. Detroit Tigers series preview.

As per usual when the Astros play the Tigers nowadays, we can reminisce on when A.J. Hinch was the Astros manager and helped bring the franchise it’s first ever World Series title in 2017. Ah, memories.

Now, let’s get to the series. The Astros split their first against the White Sox, and the Tigers are winless at 0-3. The Tigers, simply put, are a bad team. All of their prospects that they’ve been counting on to be super good, are either injury prone, or are not good at baseball. This is a series that the Astros should be winning nine times out of 10, but if you’re a true Astros fan, you know that the Tigers own the Astros in previous seasons.

For some reason, the Tigers come to Minute Maid or host the Astros at Comerica Park, and end up sweeping or taking the series from the Astros in recent years. There isn’t really a rhyme or reason to it, other than maybe it’s the A.J. Hinch curse? I’m not sure, but all I know is that the Astros should win this series, and win it handedly.

Let’s preview the pitching matchups:

Monday, game one: Matthew Boyd vs. Hunter Brown

Tuesday, game two: Matt Manning vs. Framber Valdez

Wednesday, game three: Eduardo Rodriguez vs. Cristian Javier

On paper, the Astros have the pitching advantage for the Detroit Tigers series, but last weekend, none of the Astros starting pitchers made it through more than five innings in their starts. It’s the first week of the season and we’re four games in, so there’s no need to panic at all. The pitching staff is fine, and I think Hunter Brown gets the boys going by throwing six innings of shutout ball with seven+ strikeouts.

As most of you all know, the lineup is going to be missing Jose Altuve and Michael Brantley for a little while, so the death lineup will have to wait to appear during the summer time. However, I love that Jeremy Peña is leading off, and that Kyle Tucker has been hitting fifth in the lineup. The top five of the lineup are absolute DAWGS, and if you get some decent production from David Hensley and Chas McCormick in the 6-9 spots, then you’re set up for success.

McCormick proved last postseason that he should be the every day center fielder for this squad, and if Saturday and Sunday didn’t prove that all over again, I’m not entirely sure what will. I’m not the manager or anywhere near the clubhouse, but it just wouldn’t make sense to have anyone other than Chas in center field going forward this season.

As I stated above, the Astros should win this series. In the Houston Astros vs. Detroit Tigers series preview I’m going to take the Astros 2-1 in this series. They have one game where the bats aren’t making good contact and they lose a weird one 1-2 or something. Hunter Brown is going to shove, and Alex Bregman is going to get his first hit of the season Monday night. Book it.