Atlanta Braves at Houston Astros preview: Welcome to Texas
By Brad Rowland
It was a rough close to the weekend for the Atlanta Braves, as they dropped the final two games in the nation’s capital to quell the rumblings of positive momentum. However, the team was afforded a much needed day off on Monday, and during that time, the Braves were traveling to Texas to set up a three-game set against the Houston Astros. Coming into the year, these three games looked very appetizing with the Astros coming off of a 110-loss campaign, but they have been fairly competitive, and that brings a bit of intrigue to the week’s slate of games.
Aaron Harang takes the ball in the opener for Atlanta, and he is coming off of a disastrous outing against the Philadelphia Phillies last week. The big right-hander allowed 13 hits, nine runs (eight earned) and three walks over just five innings of work on Wednesday, but even with that catastrophe, Harang’s ERA holds at a very respectable 3.83 through 15 starts. Harang will have his hands full with the trio of Jose Altuve, George Springer and Jon Singleton in this one, but fortunately, two of them (Altuve and Springer) are right-handed, and this is also a lineup that is prone to strikeouts.
On the offensive side of things, Atlanta has a favorable match-up against veteran right-hander Scott Feldman. Much like Harang, Feldman has an ERA under 4.00 despite some interesting outings recently, but his 6.38 ERA in June combined with a mark near 5.00 at home lends some positive thinking to the outlook of the lineup. The Braves don’t have an all-out pitching advantage in this spot, but when they can put Harang on the mound in a spot where he is arguably the better pitcher, things fall into place quite nicely.
Here is a look at the particulars for Tuesday:
Date: June 24, 2014
Start Time: 8:10 pm ET
TV Channel: SportSouth
Radio: 680 AM/106.7 FM (Local in Atlanta), Full list of Local Affiliates
Live Stream: MLB.tv (Click Here, $)
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