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Play WHITE SOX and ATROS UNDER 4 RUNS (1ST HALF or FIRST-5 INNINGS). This 4% rated play is good with the 1H Total of 4 runs - if this first half total is only available to you at 3.5, reduce the investment to a 2% rather than 4% push)
4% confidence rating
List Pitchers: Kopech and Javier
HP Umpire: Corey Blaser is pitcher-friendly. A veteran of over 300 home plate assignments Blazer amazingly is in the top 20 of over 150 MLB umpires with a 7.9 Walk rate, as well as a combined batting average of games he has graded balls and strikes. Blazer is in the top 10 of the most pitcher-friendly metrics, such as OBP, and he tops all umpires with 50 or more home plate assignments in SLG percentage and RPG. 
Weather: The Minute Maid roof will be closed tonight; if the club follows the standard outline they issued to the public and on affiliated partner portals if it feels like 90 degrees or more, the roof in Houston is closed. The forecast for tonight's event has the first pitch temp in the neighborhood of 105 degrees with no precip and a 5-10 mph wind blowing out to centerfield. 

The Houston Astros and Chicago White Sox are slated for the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball feature at Minute Maid tonight. The visiting White Sox have scheduled right-hander Michael Kopech to start and oppose the Astros righty, Cristian Javier. Kopech will take the mound at The Maid, having last pitched on the south side of Chicago versus the Texas Rangers. Kopech has had six days between starts due to concern with his right knee, resulting in the Pale Sox pitcher leaving last Sunday vs. Texas after two-thirds of an inning.

The 26-year-old Kopech is in the midst of a season in which he is transitioning back to a starting role. It should come as no surprise that his metrics as a starter are not going to match those that the right-hander recorded coming out of the pen. Kopech owns a 1.92 ERA, 8.9 K/9, 4.2 BB/9, and a 4.50 xFIP across 11 starts (51.2 IP). The White Sox righty scuffles commanding his electric stuff, which has resulted in a walk rate that at times leaves him at the mercy of the home plate umpire's K-zone.

Corey Blaser is scheduled to garner the facemask and vest tonight and grade balls and strikes in this getaway day event for the Sox and umpiring crew.   Blazer rests in the top 20 of 150-plus active MLB umpires with his 7.9 Walk rate. Even with Blazer's expanded strike zone, Kopech faces a lineup that combines to walk more and strike out less per at-bat vs. RHP than any team in the league save the New York Yankees. 
 
The transition from pen to the starter is different for every pitcher. In Kopech's space and time, his swinging-strike rate is down (10%), while a larger percentage than not of his batted balls are fly balls.

Kopech, despite turning his arm speed down a notch or two in the starting role instead of being beckoned out of the pen, still struggles to command his arsenal like that of the more experienced and elite starters in the league. Being flyball-heavy and issuing more walks than the doctor would ever advise has always been believed to make Kopech a liability in the starting role, long term. However, Kopech has proved himself otherwise.  

Kopech throws a heavy ball and limits hard contact. What he has limited his hard contact percentage to this season, albeit only two of six months of the regular slate, is ridiculously good. The White Sox righty has a mere 27 percent hard contact variable inside of his game-night metrics. His profile finds him throwing his curveball more than at any point in this or previous seasons.

Kopech has worked on developing his curve as a third offering, and the results have been promising. Kopech throws his four-seamer 65% of the time, his slider 23% of the time, and the new version of his curve 11% of the time, leaving him with a small percentage of change-ups.  

As important as it is to understand the relationship between Kopech and his new pitch mix, the results of that work and the concern with his walks per nine innings is how pedestrian this Houston Astros offense has been this 2022 season.

All things equal, the Strohs' Yordan Alvarez is carrying his mates on his back with a .299/.395/.630 slash line through 64 games. Altuve has good numbers, but most of the Astros' everyday personnel are not having All-Star offensive seasons. Alvarez has been the one player shouldering a lot of the team's load.

Alvarez leads the Astros with 28 extra-base hits (eight doubles, two triples, and 18 home runs) but is not expected to be in the starting lineup tonight due to a leg injury.

Houston sends Javier and his deceiving fastball to the Minute Maid mound for a first-inning start. Javier typically registers his four-seamer at 93-to-94 mph on the stadium radar gun. But ask any junior circuit players that face Javier, and they will tell you it rides and has a late get-up-and-go that makes the pitch looks more like 100 than the 93 or 94 miles per hour that the right-hander delivers on game night.

Javier threw 5 2/3 scoreless innings versus Cleveland, followed by four innings of one-run baseball vs. the A's to close May. Javier is the first Astros pitcher to strike out at least nine batters and walk one or fewer in two consecutive starts since Gerrit Cole accomplished the feat in September 2019.

Javier has benefited from a 5.8% HR/FB rate this season. Combine that with what has been a dead ball, and it explains how a flyball pitcher can own a sub-6strike zone percent HR/FB ratio.

Both pitchers benefit tonight from the strikezone of home plate umpire Corey Blaser. Furthermore, both starters have significant advantages the first two times through the lineup. Kopech, save the handful of plate appearances he had against the Astros last October in the Fall Classic tournament, the Pale Sox right-hander has only faced one current Houston hitter in one official at-bat. Javier, too, has faced only one Chicago hitter in live-action, that player being Josh Harrison.

Kopech's splits this season find the righty containing the opposing lineup with a .169 BAA the first time through the lineup and a .141 BAA the second time.

Javier has limited the opposition to a .185 batting average against the first time through the order and a .230 BAA the second.

WHITE SOX and ASTROS UNDER 4 RUNS (1st Half | First-Five)