Allow me to set the stage. Coming to you live from beautiful and spacious Minute Maid Park in Houston, TX, it's the Toronto Blue Jays flying south to face the Houston Astros in what is shaping up to be a stellar matchup.

This dance will feature an engaging pitching duel, with Toronto's Bowden Francis and his quite respectable 4.04 ERA and 8.1 K/9 in the blue corner, countered by Houston's sixth man of the year Ryan Gusto bringing a stellar 3.18 ERA and 9.0 K/9 standing proudly in the orange corner.

Now if we shadow the pitching talent a moment and shed some light on the batting icons, for the Jays we have Tyler Heineman and George Springer jointly driving the offensive wagon. Heineman’s impressive batting graveyard silence and Springer's talents in knocking runs have recently become the talk of the town. Bo Bichette, despite a lack of home runs, has shown he can deliver when the team needs him. The Astros aren't exactly starved for smashers either. Jose Altuve, Isaac Paredes and Yordan Alvarez have been muscling the ball out like it insulted their mothers.

Dusting off the history books, a look at past matchups tells us the Astros have had Blue Jays for breakfast more often than not, and they'd like to keep the trend. Recent performance also paints the Astros in a favorable light, hinting that the Jays might be set up for a rough ride once again.

Considering the regular season records, both teams appear fairly neck-to-neck. However, it's an unforgiving sport and the game plays no favorites, darlings.

Taking all this under my batting helmet, or well, fedora...

Albert’s Prediction: Houston Astros by 2