#924 ASA TOP PLAY ON 10* Houston -150 over Oakland, Saturday at 4:05 PM ET - The Astros won the first 5 match-ups between these teams this season by a combined score of 41 to 11. It was complete dominance. Yesterday the A's finally got some measure of revenge with a 6 to 2 win as they rallied for 5 runs in the last two innings. Though Houston's pen had a rare bad game yesterday they have had the much better bullpen (3.98 ERA) so far this season in comparison with Oakland's relief work (5.94 ERA). Also, the Astros are tops in the American League with a .282 batting average and .502 slugging percentage. The A's are dead last in the AL in both categories with a .175 batting average and .287 slugging percentage. In evaluating the starting pitching match-up here, Oakland's Frankie Montas seems like a shell of his 2019 version. In 2020 he dropped off and produced a 5.60 ERA. This season he seemed to carry the struggles right into 2021 as he got roughed up in the last two of his three spring outings and then was horrible in his regular season debut as he got rocked for 7 earned runs in less than 3 innings against the Dodgers. Montas has an ERA of 9.00 in his last 3 starts at Houston so facing the Astros at Minute Maid Park is unlikely to be the point he turns things around. The Astros start Jose Urquidy in this one. He faced the A's last week and had a rough first inning but retired 11 of the last 12 batters he faced and settled in nicely in that outing. Now Urquidy is at home where he has allowed just 26 hits in 34 and 1 / 3 innings in his first two seasons in the bigs. One of his few rough outings at home was against the A's last season but he showed he is past that with his performance last week at Oakland as he battled through the first inning and settled in and didn't give Oakland anything after that. More of that dominance expected here. We’ll grab the home team at a very fair price on the money line in this one and bet HOUSTON