How Texans' health, pride, and playoff positioning now take center stage
TEXANS LAST STAND
02 January
Houston wraps up the regular season this Sunday! Composite Getty Image.
The Houston Texans head to Nashville this Sunday to take on the Titans and put a bow on the regular season. There's not much at stake for either team outside of pride, and draft positioning for Tennessee.
Speaking of pride, the Titans will be sporting the Oilers throwback uniforms in the season finale, so that could add some extra motivation. Especially considering the bad blood between these two franchises.
The main focus for the Texans this week should be getting through the game healthy, and trying to recapture some success on offense after a disappointing season.
Newly acquired receiver Diontae Johnson should get some valuable reps in this week's contest, and it would be great to see CJ Stroud develop some chemistry with Johnson before the playoffs begin next week.
If it were up to us, Stroud and the top starters wouldn't see the field this week. But it looks like Texans HC DeMeco Ryans plans to play his starters and see how the game progresses.
While it would be nice to see the offense click even against the lowly Titans, it's hard to imagine this week will be any different from the rest of the regular season.
However, we understand that the Texans would like to wash the bad taste out of their mouths after laying an egg on Christmas against the Ravens.
What does Vegas think?
The Titans are favored by 1.5 and the total is set at 37 points. This matchup features the lowest total of the week, so points could be hard to come by.
Playoff path
It appears the Texans are likely to face either the Steelers or Chargers in the Wild Card round. If we had to chose, we would prefer Houston face the Steelers, because the Chargers are stronger at quarterback.
But Steelers fans travel, so the Texans won't have much of a home field advantage with half the stadium full of Steelers fans.
This is one video you don't want to miss as we preview Texans-Titans, reveal some Pro Bowl snubs, and look ahead to the NFL postseason.
José Ramírez homered for a third straight game, Angel Martínez also went deep and the Cleveland Guardians got a 4-2 win over the Houston Astros on Wednesday night to complete a three-game sweep.
It’s the first time the Guardians, who entered the series on a 10-game skid, have won three in a row since a four-game winning streak from May 21-24.
Slade Cecconi (4-4) allowed five hits and two runs with a career-best nine strikeouts in 7-plus innings for the win. Paul Sewald pitched a scoreless ninth for his second save.
Martínez homered for a second straight at-bat with his shot to the Crawford Boxes with one out in the first inning. His grand slam with two outs in the 10th inning Tuesday night lifted Cleveland to a 10-6 win.
Four pitches after Martinez’s homer Wednesday, Ramírez also connected off Brandon Walter (1-2) to make it 2-0. Walter settled in after that, retiring the next 17 batters, with seven strikeouts before Bennett Sousa took over to start the seventh.
Ramírez and Carlos Santana hit consecutive singles with no outs in the inning before David Fry walked to load the bases. Johnathan Rodríguez then singled to score two and extend the lead to 4-0.
The Astros had managed just four singles when Taylor Trammell walked with no outs in the eighth and scored on a double by Mauricio Dubón that cut the lead to 4-1. There were two outs in the inning when Jose Altuve’s RBI double made it 4-2.
The AL West-leading Astros went 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position to cap this disappointing series which came after they swept the Dodgers in Los Angeles over the weekend.
Key moment
Martínez and Ramírez had back-to-back homers in the first.
Key stat
Ramírez, who dropped out of next week’s All-Star game Wednesday to rehab a nagging Achilles injury, has four homers and seven RBIs this month.
Up next
LHP Logan Allen (5-7, 4.07 ERA) will start for Cleveland in the opener of a four-game series against the Chicago White Sox Thursday night. The Astros are off Thursday and haven’t announced their rotation for their weekend series against the Rangers.
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