Astros vs. Blue Jays picks and odds: Take the under in Berrios vs. Valdez matchup

The season series between the Blue Jays and Astros is knotted 3-3, and it’ll be decided tonight at Rogers Centre.

The pregame narrative: A win on Thursday would mark Toronto’s eighth in its past 10 games. With a great tandem of pitchers going, we’re looking for the under to hit for the third night in a row between these teams.

Check out all of our Astros vs. Blue Jays picks for June 8.

MLB odds as of 9:10 a.m. ET on 06/08/23.

Astros vs. Blue Jays picks

Best Bet : Under 8.5 runs (-115)

For as good as Hunter Brown vs. Kevin Gausman was on Tuesday, tonight’s matchup on the mound could be even better. And that has us interested in the under.

Framber Valdez (6-4, 2.16 ERA) and Jose Berrios (5-4, 3.66 ERA) will throw for Houston and Toronto, respectively. Both starters have allowed one or fewer runs in each of their past three outings.

Throughout his career, Berrios has been particularly strong at home — and that trend has carried through this year:

Valdez doesn’t have a stark home/road split, which is helpful in this case. In a limited sample, his road numbers have been excellent:

Berrios hit this under in his lone start against Houston last year — as did Valdez in his lone start against Toronto. During the Astros/Jays series in April, Berrios did his part to contribute to another under ... before a seven-run eighth inning pushed the game past this total by half a run.

We can’t count on a bad beat like that repeating itself. Instead, we’ll ride with a pair of really strong pitchers to do their thing.

Key stat: Five of Valdez’s past seven starts have hit this under, as have four of Berrios’s past five.

Quick pick

Most hits - Astros (-114) : The Blue Jays are batting .264 as a team, which ranks third in MLB. The Astros, meanwhile, are batting .247 (17th in MLB). So what are we doing here?

Well, Toronto’s batting average is way down over the past two weeks (.213), and tonight the team will face one of the game’s stingiest pitchers.

Dating back to 2021, Valdez has a .221 opponent batting average, which ranks 10th in the AL in that span. And he only allowed two hits over 6.1 innings when he faced Toronto last year.

Looking to get started? Sign up here.