My favorite team travels to Boston tonight for an exciting matchup this evening sure to feature a lot of hits and top level play, as the two teams continue their quest to be 2026 champions. That’s right, I’m talking about the Buffalo Sabres taking on the Boston Bruins tonight in Game 6 of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
My other favorite team also travels to Boston tonight for a much less exciting matchup this evening, that is also sure to feature a lot of hits, but neither of these teams are en route to be 2026 champions. That’s right, I’m talking about the Houston Astros taking on the Boston Red Sox.
What’s on the line here? The Astros have the worst record in the AL at 12-20, tied with the Angels. But if they can defeat the Red Sox, who are 12-19, then they can hand over that distinction to the Red Sox, provided that the Angels also beat… the Mets.
Astros vs Red Sox? Angels vs the MLB worst 10-21 Mets? Eww. This is the bottom dredges of the losers’ bracket this weekend, a race to see whose managers will get fired first. In that regard, the Red Sox crossed the finish line first, releasing Alex Cora on April 25. The Phillies followed suit with Rob Thomson not long after. It seems inevitable that Carlos Mendoza and Joe Espada are next, but in which order? (Kurt Suzuki in his first year as Angel’s skipper is probably safe.)
There will be, as I mentioned, a lot of hits in this Astros-Red Sox game just like the Sabres-Bruins game, but mostly because the two teams’ pitching is terrible. The Astros have an AL Worst -0.1 pitching fWAR. The Red Sox are second worst at 1.4, which is still a value the Astros can only aspire to. The Astros have the worst HR/9 allowed rate in the AL at 1.49; the Red Sox have the second worst at 1.36.
Astros fans may be happy to learn that while their team is last in the AL in ERA, FIP and xFIP, they are not last in xERA; that trophy goes to the Red Sox.
The last time the Astros played the Red Sox, they swept them in 3 games in Houston, giving them a 5 game win streak. That 5 game win streak felt good, but it doesn’t seem so impressive now that we can see the 5 wins were built off the Red Sox and Angels.
This game is so exciting that we have Astros Mike Burrows, still searching for his first quality start after 6 tries, facing off against… “TBD”, according to mlb.com. Oooh!
Actually the starter is expected to be rookie southpaw Jake Bennett, the #6 prospect for Boston, who will be making his major league debut.
The game will be broadcast at 6:10 p.m. CT on SCHN with radio coverage on KBME 790 AM.
This post will be updated with starting lineups as they are made available.
Update:
We hope you will join us and the rest of the Launch Angle community for the game! The turnout has been fantastic on the TLA Discord Server for the game threads.
Join us again for today’s game. Just join the Discord server using this link: https://launch-angle.com/discord .
For more detailed instructions, please see the Guide to the Launch Angle.
If you’ve participated in game threads on other Astros sites in the past, you will probably see a lot of familiar names. Chat, lurk, do whatever! (But please say “hi”, so we know you’re not a bot.)
Feature photo by mhatter106. I don’t generally link to the old site, but if you want an account of the 2022 Fenway trip I took this photo on, you can check it out here.
I wish they could make the area of downtown Houston right around daikin have more character like the way wrigleyville is and the area around Fenway. It just feels random by Daikin. Like that one vinyl siding house that’s just sitting across Texas street from daikin, like it’s the house from Up that the old man won’t move.
Genuinely curious (maybe morbidly is the better word, but I am optimistic about our new-look bats) how we will react to a rookie starter who has no tape out on him in Fenway today. Historically, even very good Astros offenses have tended to flounder against no-names or rookies. But looking back at Snitker and Cintron, that may have had *something* to do with their style of gameplanning and preparation.
It’ll be a challenge, even if this is a “fail off” matchup between two extremely disappointing clubs to this point.