Houston was obliterated by Boston on Thursday! Now, it must turn around and travel to Detroit for a game with a Tigers team that's been playing better lately. On top of that, it will face a starter, Matt Manning, who is coming off consecutive winning starts (zero runs and two hits vs. the Red Sox and one run in six innings vs. Cleveland).

The Astros will counter with Framber Valdez, who called himself "trash" after his last outing (six runs on ten hits in a loss to Seattle). He has allowed 24 hits and 16 runs combined in his last three starts, including five home runs. The Tigers are hitting better post-All-Star weekend (.246 BA/.303 OBP/.412 SLG/.715 OPS) than they did in the first half of the season (.231/.300/.367/.667), and averaged about five runs/game in their last eight games.

I'm confident Detroit will at least cover the run line on Friday... After a straight-up loss, the Tigers have a 41-27 run line record, the third-highest RL winning percentage (60.3%) in MLB!!!