James Paxton vs. Dallas Keuchel, 5:10pm
Welcome to the difficult part of the schedule. The M’s kick off a short series with the Astros, and after a brief respite in Tampa, face off against a bunch of playoff contenders, from Anaheim to Boston to New York. There are precious few Twins or Rangers this month.
The Astros have a run differential of + 122 coming into today, which looks like it’s in a different league to the M’s +17, but sadly for Houston, they don’t award playoff spots based on run differential. Yes, the M’s look much worse on paper, and the run differential tells that story.