During the course of all the furious action Friday evening, we absolutely crushed it again here in Best Bets. Heading to the late innings of the ALCS game, I was resigned to my Jose Altuve and Astros total bets not cashing and my thought process was pretty simple: "I've been on such a hot streak, it was only a matter of time. It's fine. We'll get 'em tomorrow."
And then Altuve hit a three-run homer, which cashed his H+R+RBI over and also pushed the Astros over 4.5 runs for the game. It was a ninth-inning double cash. Amazing!
Bryce Harper drew his walk in the nightcap and we had a 3-0 day. That makes us 28-11 here for the playoffs.
Phillies (-136) at Diamondbacks (+115), 8:07 p.m. ET
Starting pitchers: RHP Zack Wheeler (13-6, 3.61) vs. RHP Zac Gallen (17-9, 3.47)
It'll be hard to trust the bullpens in this one and my colleague Mike Axisa did an excellent breakdown on this matter. That means if you have a lean one way or the other based on the starting pitchers, playing a first five inning bet would make a lot more sense than the full game.
On those starting pitchers, the regular-season splits indicate both should feel more comfortable in this venue than they did in Game 1. Gallen had a 4.42 ERA on the road while going 12-3 with a 2.47 ERA at home. Wheeler was about one run better (3.16 vs. 4.13) on the road and in his road playoff start took a no-hitter into the sixth inning against the mighty Braves.
The plays: Bryce Harper over 1.5 H+R+RBI (-150) and Ketel Marte over 1.5 H+R+RBI (-120)
In Game 1 against Gallen, Harper homered, singled and walked. In his regular-season career, he's 4 for 12 (.333) with a double, so there's great history here. So far in Arizona in this series, Harper is 0 for 5, but that just means he's a sleeping giant. His team has lost two straight games and Game 4 finished with Harper on deck. Playoff Bryce is going to show up at Chase Field Saturday and choose violence. My only reluctance here is whether or not he'll get pitches to hit. If he walks every time, though, we'll count on his teammates driving him home twice. I don't think he's going to be pitched around to the extreme, either, which is why I didn't run back the walk prop that we've cashed twice this series. They'll pitch to him. And when they do, they'll pay.
Marte didn't fare well against Wheeler in Game 1 of this series, but he was previously 4 for 10 in his career against the righty and he's gone 8 for 17 (.471) this series while hitting .471/.500/.647 in the playoffs. Plus, he's a much better hitter at home (.303/.383/.505 vs. .250/.335/.466 on the road in the regular season). Even if he doesn't get to Wheeler, I could see him hitting a home run off whatever compromised bullpen arm the Phillies roll out there. Marte has the look a player we want to ride with right now.
