The Athletics have dropped five straight and just got blanked by Houston to open this set — now they head back to Minute Maid Park to see if it gets any better.
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SUN AUG 23 · 1:10 PM CT
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Athletics
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Neither club has posted a starter for Sunday's game yet, which tracks for where both teams are right now: Oakland is playing out a lost season and Houston is still figuring out its own pitching depth on the fly. Whoever ends up on the mound, this game is going to be shaped more by two rosters pointed in completely opposite directions than by any one arm.
Houston's lineup did the talking in the series opener, and Jeremy Pena's sore hand is the bigger swing factor here than anything on paper. He's missed time after getting hit by a 100 mph sinker, and while an MRI came back clean, the Astros have been mixing and matching around him at shortstop. On the other side, Oakland is down its first baseman, its regular shortstop, its left fielder, its center fielder and its DH to various injured-list stints — that's not a lineup missing a piece, that's a lineup missing most of one.
Zoom out and the stakes are lopsided. Houston already watched Seattle lock up the AL West, but the Astros are still very much alive for a wild-card spot in a crowded field, which makes every series like this one worth something. The Athletics are just trying to get their young players reps before the season mercifully ends.
Athletics
Houston Astros
That form card tells the story plainly — Houston has alternated wins and losses over its last five, including an ugly one against the Angels, while Oakland hasn't won a game in over a week. The Astros took the series opener 4-0, and Sunday is simply the next game in that set, not a finale or a sweep to be had — there's nothing settled about it yet beyond who won the first game.
Athletics
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Fully healthy — no injuries to report
Houston Astros
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Fully healthy — no injuries to report
Both injury lists explain a lot about how each team is built right now. Houston's is short and mostly day-to-day — Pena, a couple of pitchers rehabbing — the kind of stuff a contender manages around. Oakland's reads like a teardown, with two 60-day IL transfers in the last week alone and a rotation that's lost its ace for the year. That gap is the whole game in miniature.
