Tuesday Best Bets in baseball!

Houston Astros at Milwaukee Brewers (7:40 PM ET)

Don’t look now but the Astros are back. Winners of eight games in a row—5 of its last seven by two or more runs—they are coming off a 12-2 shellacking of the Brewers in Milwaukee on Monday. The Astros’ month-of-May revival has mainly been an offensive one—since May 10 (over an almost two week span), they’ve racked up excellent hitting numbers—129 wRC+, .350 wOBA, .825 OPS—all numbers ranked 3rd in baseball during that span. They’re now one game back of Texas in the AL West. (Side note—It’s unfortunate that we will not see another Astros-Rangers series until June 30.) Today, the Astros get to feast on Brewers RHP Colin Rea, who has a 5.34 ERA and 4.55 SIERA as a starter. His WHIP of 1.19 over six starts is not terrible, but it’s unlikely that he will limit this high-powered Astros offense to under three runs. And considering the state of Milwaukee’s bullpen (their collective 4.28 SIERA is next to last in MLB), it’s unlikely that the Astros will miss their full-game total of 5 runs. On the other side of the card, the Brewers offense, ranked 23rd in wRC+ this season, will have more difficulty against the Astros’ pen and their starter today, right-hander J.P. France (4.11 ERA). In his third start of the season, France struggled against the Cubs last week— giving up six runs and 9 hits including 3 homers in 3 2/3 innings. Before then, however, he had dazzled, allowing one run in 11 2/3 innings in his two previous starts, both on the road. Recency bias related to France’s last start seem to be driving the Astros money line odds down a bit. I would actually consider taking a flyer on the Astros run line here, but my best bets are…

Bet the ASTROS money line/to win (-132).

Best of the Rest

• Bet the CUBS to win/money line (-106).

• Bet the OVER 8 runs in Giants/Twins (-108).

• Bet the MARLINS money line/to win first five (F5) innings (-132).

• Bet the PHILLIES -0.5 run line in the first five (F5) innings (-120).