Houston Astros second baseman Jose Altuve will make his season debut in Friday's series opener against left-hander Ken Waldichuk and the Oakland Athletics.
Altuve was activated from the 10-day injured list on Friday after missing the start of the season due to thumb surgery. He will start on second base and handle leadoff duty in Friday's opener. Jeremy Pena will drop to sixth in the order. The Astros optioned David Hensley to Triple-A Sugar Land on Friday in a corresponding roster move.
numberFire’s models project Altuve ($3,400) for 13.5 FanDuel points on Friday. Pena ($3,100) is projected for 9.3 FanDuel points. Per our MLB Heat Map, the Astros' implied total is second-highest on the board at 5.66 and the game total is 9.5. Waldichuk enters the contest with a 5.37 SIERA, 18.2% strikeout rate, 11.7% walk rate, and 34.3% ground-ball rate. He's also somehow yielding 2.63 home runs per nine innings.
Source: Baseball Press