Keagan Smith gives you a preview, prediction and pick for today’s game between the Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros on Monday’s MLB slate.

The opening days of the 2026 MLB season have been an absolute blast to watch, and as we roll into the second week of action on the diamond, there are plenty of games for fans and bettors alike to choose from.

The Boston Red Sox went 1-2 in their first series of the new year, but there’s no reason to panic. It’s early! Tonight, they’re set to open another road trip as they head down south to take on an American League foe, the Houston Astros. The home team split its opening series 2-2 as well, but we’ve seen just how talented both sides of this matchup are in years past. This should be an excellent three-game series to kick the week off with.

Come fight the Monday blues with us! Here’s a betting prediction and pick for tonight’s Red Sox vs. Astros matchup courtesy of MLB odds and lines on DraftKings Sportsbook.

Red Sox vs. Astros prediction, preview

The opening series of the season wasn’t the most kind to the Red Sox, who claimed a 3-0 win over the Cincinnati Reds on the back of a Garrett Crochet gem in game one before dropping the following two contests 6-5 and 3-2. The great news is that the offense hasn’t struggled to make contact and the bats are already finding their form, which is more than many teams can say at this point. Boston sits eighth in batting average and on-base percentage at .250 and .347. The plate approach looks solid and one standout in particular is Wilyer Abreu, who’s 6-for-13 with two homers and a ridiculous 1.538 OPS. Yeah yeah, small sample size. Who cares? Overall, the pitching staff sits fifth in ERA at 2.00 but has massively outperformed a 5.28 xERA, so it’s certainly worth a mention that perhaps there’s been some luck in that regard. Still, this was a playoff team last year that added another ace in Ranger Suarez, so there’s plenty of time for the arms to get into the swing of things.

As for the Astros, fans were ready to declare the season over with an 0-2 start at the hands of the Los Angeles Angels. However, there’s a reason they play 162 games. Houston finished the opening series at an even 2-2 split, with the highlight coming as the squad rallied from down 6-0 in game three to wake up the bats and escape with a momentum-swinging win. A .231 average may not be the most impressive to start the year, but the Stros are sixth in OBP at .352 with the third best BB% in the MLB thanks to 23 walks across their four appearances. They’re also fifth in runs with 22 despite hitting just one homer over the course of that series as well (which would’ve been two were it not for the rafter of the stadium roof sending a Yordan Alvarez ball careening foul). The pitching has not been good though, sitting fourth-to-last in ERA at 6.25 and giving up a whopping nine — yes, nine — homers. Woof, indeed.

There’s a massive discrepancy between the arms who get the starting nod on Monday night. The Red Sox roll out their star signing in Suarez, who comes off an excellent 2025 in which he recorded a 3.20 ERA and 1.22 WHIP over his 157.1 innings, striking out 151 batters. His advanced metrics graphs on Baseball Savant are Playboi Carti-esque with a Whole Lotta Red — that’s a good thing, folks. He graded out in the 90th percentile in pitching run value and limited hard contact better than nearly any other hurler in the sport at 89th percentile or better in average exit velocity, barrel rate and hard-hit percentage.

The Astros don’t have near that caliber of talent on the mound for this one. Lance McCullers Jr. returned from an extensive injury absence in 2025 after pitching his last regulation MLB game in 2022. Unfortunately, he experienced a brutal first campaign back on the bump with a 6.51 ERA and 1.81 WHIP over his 55.1 innings of work. The good news is that his strikeout stuff was semi-back with 61 punchouts in that span, but he graded out in the 15th percentile or worse in practically any category you can name. That included first-percentile finishes in chase and walk rate as well as hard-hit percentage.

Red Sox vs. Astros pick, best bet

On DraftKings Sportsbook, the oddsmakers list the visiting Red Sox as -118 Moneyline favorites with the Astros priced at -102 to win outright. The run total sits at 8.5 for this matchup.

Best Bet: Fade Lance McCullers Jr.

In something of a rare practice, I’m refraining from giving an individual bet as my top pick and instead imploring bettors to pick their poison by fading McCullers Jr. in whatever market they see fit. As sad as it is, the guy who was a key part of the Houston dynasty is long since gone. He was one of the least-effective pitchers in baseball last season and was shelled in practically every start he received. He gave up over 2.5 earned runs in 7/13 and over 2.5 walks in 8/13, not to mention that he went fewer than 14.5 outs in 9/13. You get the idea, but any of these props make plenty of sense tonight given the control issues and an average exit velocity of 90.5 over his full sample in 2025.

Strong Lean: Red Sox over 4.5 runs (+105)

If you’d rather a different market, here’s one for you. The Red Sox offense looked solid to open their season and now get a date against a pitching staff that seemed to have its fair share of issues. With McCullers on the mound and a bullpen that has a 4.91 ERA to kick off the campaign, the environment is ripe for Boston to blast some extra-base hits that get plenty of batters across the plate. I like the over on this team total.