The AL West-leading Houston Astros will visit the AL East-worst Boston Red Sox for game 1 of a three-game set at Fenway Park Friday night. The Astros are riding a four-game winning streak and have averaged five runs per game over their last five while the Red Sox also have won four of their last five and trounced the Blue Jays 12-6 yesterday. I think we can expect to see plenty of action over the plate in Boston tonight.

Here are my keys to the game:

1. Pitching - The Red Sox will hand the ball to Justin Masterson (3-2, 5.58 ERA) who was sharp in his comeback from a five-week stint on the DL due to tendinitis in his right shoulder when he tossed five innings of one-run ball at Tampa Bay. He's been quite poor home at Fenway this season though conceding 14 runs in 20 innings of work for a 6.30 ERA. The Astros will counter with 26 year old right-hander Dan Straily who will make his season-debut tonight taking over the recently demoted left-hander Brett Oberholtzer's spot in the rotation. He's not been particularly impressive in the minors with Triple-A Fresno going 6-6 with a 4.06 ERA for the year and this is a bad time to face a surging Red Sox offense coming off a big Thursday.

2. Jose Altuve - The Astros's second baseman is having another productive year batting .298 for the season and he's been very good of late batting .368 over a 10-game hitting streak. He's enjoyed recent visits to Fenway as well going 6-for-10 in his last two games there.

3. X-Factor - Only one of the Red Sox's last six games with the total set at 9.0-10.5 has gone under.

Selection: This is a play on HOU@BOS to go over the total (8*)