The Philadelphia Phillies begin what is arguably their most important week of the season on Monday, welcoming the Houston Astros to town for three games before a four-game set with the Atlanta Braves that could determine the NL East winner.

The Phillies are a -155 series favorite against the Astros.

Houston needs wins to fend off the Seattle Mariners in the American League West and potentially grab one of the top two seeds in the AL. The Astros are five games back of the Cleveland Guardians for the AL’s No. 2 seed.

The Astros/Phillies series has the potential to produce three consecutive low-scoring battles highlighted by strong pitching.

The Phils send Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, and home ace Cristopher Sanchez to the mound, in that order, to face Ronel Blanco, Justin Verlander, and Spencer Arrighetti.


Blanco and Arrighetti are solid young pitchers who have helped the Astros get back into first place after a rough start. Verlander is, well, still Verlander and he’ll be a tough pitcher to crack in a playoff-like atmosphere.

Houston is 2-4 in its last six games, but has not lost those games by a lot. They were ahead for most of Friday’s game in Baltimore before a blown save, lost by one on Saturday, and fell 6-5 and 4-1 last week in Boston.

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Pitching will dictate the series. Blanco allowed two or fewer earned runs in seven of his last nine starts, Verlander is coming off a five-inning return in which he allowed two earned runs on four hits and Arrighetti has struck out 36 batters in four August starts.

Wheeler, Nola, and Sanchez are all significantly better at home. Wheeler’s ERA is 0.80 points better at home than on the road, Nola’s ERA is 0.66 points lower at home and Sanchez owns a 2.18 home ERA compared to a 5.43 road ERA. All three Phillies pitchers have batting average against of .220 or lower.

The Under 8 on Monday should be in play because of the pitching matchup, but the way I would look for Monday and the entire series would be to bet the first five innings under in each game.

The starting pitching is elite on both ends and the bottom half to third of each order is questionable at best, so there’ll be almost an overreliance on the power hitters in each lineup against a set of pitchers that do not typically give up home runs.