Astros Live Game Feed: Game 30 Preview

Let’s see if the Astros can start the weekend on a winning note!

GAME 2: Taijuan Walker (2-1, 1.80) vs. Doug Fister (2-3, 4.60)

Walker completely dominated the Astros in their matchup in Seattle earlier. He struck out 11 Astros in seven innings, and on the year, he has 29 strikeouts and only three walks in 30 innings pitched. This season, he has yet to allow more than two earned runs and is having a spectacular start to the season. Walker did sustain his first loss of the year in his last start against the Royals in a 2-1 defeat, which saw him give up seven hits in five innings of work. 

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Jose Altuve, Evan Gattis, and Colby Rasmus are all hitting over .300 against Walker, on the flip side Carlos Correa is 1/9 and Jason Castro has struck out 9/13 at-bats against the Mariners’ phenom, so look for a possible Erik Kratz spot start here. This is Walker’s second “full season” in the big leagues, one of the areas he has improved vastly on is limiting walks. His career BB/9 is 2.3, so far this season it is 0.9. Look for the Astros, who the lead the AL in walks, to try and work the count against Walker a bit more in this matchup.

Fister has quietly put together a good stretch of starts. In fact, he has truly only had one bad start this season, four of five starts have seen Fister give up three runs or less. He has only received an average of 2.60 run support, which has hurt his record. Fister received a loss in Seattle last week in a 2-3 loss where he pitched six innings and gave up three earned runs.

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Also in that start, Fister only gave up four hit but allowed seven walks. The walks were completely out of line with the rest of his starts this season, and he will look to minimize those and hopefully pick up a victory at home against the Mariners this time around.

**Statistics provided by MLB.com & Baseball-Reference**