ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers are -156 favorites to win the American League West on FanDuel Sportsbook, with the Houston Astros listed at +134 on Tuesday. Those prices carry implied probabilities of 60.9% for Texas and 42.7% for Houston.
Earlier Tuesday, FanDuel had the Rangers at -146 and the Astros at +126. On Monday, DraftKings listed Texas at -155 and Houston at +130, according to SI’s Peter Dewey.
With six games left, Texas (78-78) is a game up on Houston (77-79). None of those six come against the Astros. Houston took the season series 9-4, and if the teams finish tied, the Astros win the division on the tiebreaker. Any combination of six Rangers wins and Astros losses clinches the division for Texas.
LegalSportsBetting.com had Houston at -380 and Texas at +310 in AL West futures on Sept. 18. That was the morning after the Astros beat the Kansas City Royals and the Rangers blew a three-run lead in a 4-3 loss to the Boston Red Sox. The site did not name the sportsbook.
Over the weekend, Texas took two of three from the Toronto Blue Jays at Globe Life Field. Houston lost all three of its home games against the Atlanta Braves, finishing with a 4-2 loss Sunday.
FanGraphs And Baseball-Reference Split On Texas Rangers And Houston Astros
As of Monday, FanGraphs gave Texas a 55.6% chance to win the division and Houston a 44.2% chance, Sports Illustrated reported. Baseball-Reference had Houston at 52% to win the division. It projected both teams to finish 81-81, which would give Houston the AL West on the tiebreaker.
Texas is 10-8 in September. Houston is 7-11. The Rangers open a three-game series against the New York Mets at 7:05 p.m. CT on Tuesday at Globe Life Field, then close with three games at the Minnesota Twins. Houston plays its last six on the road, with two at the Seattle Mariners starting at 8:40 p.m. CT on Tuesday and four against the Athletics at Sutter Health Park.
Seattle (73-83) is still alive, five games back. The Mariners’ tragic number is 2, Rymer reported, and they host Houston for two games before finishing with four against the Los Angeles Angels.
MacKenzie Gore (8-11, 4.67 ERA) starts Tuesday for Texas against left-hander Sean Manaea (5-7, 4.74 ERA). Houston sends Cristian Javier (2-6, 5.31 ERA) to the mound in Seattle. Beyond Gore, the only Rangers starter confirmed for the final six games is Jacob deGrom, who will pitch one of them. Cal Quantrill went on the 15-day injured list Sunday with a right lat strain.
Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young gave the plan Monday on 105.3 The Fan’s G-Bag Nation. His message to the players is to go take the division rather than sit back and hope it happens.
“That’s the goal here, and I’m certainly proud of the way the team has been fighting and the position we’re in,” Young said. “If you told me at the beginning of the year that with six games left that we’d be a game up and in first place and a chance to win the division, independent of the record, I would tell you I’d sign up for that. And so here we are coming down with six games to go and really excited about the week ahead and looking forward to a fun week.”
After Sunday’s 7-2 loss to Toronto, deGrom did not have a real good feel for anything beyond maybe his changeup and curveball. He walked 4 over 4 1/3 innings in his second start since mild groin tightness ended his Sept. 10 outing at Seattle.
“We know we gotta win,” deGrom said. “We gotta win as many games as we can. It’d be nice to win all of them. It would have been nice to win today, but I didn’t do a great job of helping us in that situation. We have to go play good baseball in these last six games and see what we can do.”
Chicago White Sox And Cleveland Guardians Nearly Even In AL Central
FanDuel lists the Cleveland Guardians at -116 to win the AL Central and the Chicago White Sox at -102. Earlier Tuesday, Rymer reported Cleveland at -124 and Chicago at +106.
Cleveland (81-75) leads Chicago (80-76) by one game. The White Sox won the season series 7-6 and would take the division in a tie. The Guardians are 12-7 in September, and the White Sox are 8-11. Cleveland finishes with three games at Boston and three at Kansas City. Chicago plays three at Kansas City and three at home against the Colorado Rockies.
The White Sox also hold the third and final AL wild card, two games ahead of Texas and three ahead of Houston. Chicago owns the tiebreaker over the Rangers, according to Rymer. On Monday, Texas was +5000 to earn the No. 6 seed, Houston was +4500, and Toronto was +1600, Dewey reported.
The third division winner hosts the No. 6 seed in a best-of-three Wild Card Series from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1, with all three games at the higher seed’s park. The top two division winners get byes. Entering Tuesday, those are the Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland.
Texas plays at Target Field at 7:10 p.m. CT on Friday, 3:10 p.m. CT on Saturday, and 2:10 p.m. CT on Sunday.
