Alvarez Hunts No. 43 as Astros Visit a Struggling Athletics Squad

Two teams heading in opposite directions close out their seasons at Sutter Health Park on Sunday afternoon. Houston needs a win to avoid finishing below .500, while Oakland is already deep in the basement at 64-97.

This is a late-September game that means something for one side and very little for the other. The Astros arrive at 80-81 — a record that would have been unthinkable for this franchise just a few years ago — and a loss here would push them to the wrong side of .500 to close the year. The Athletics, sitting at 64-97, are playing out the string. That asymmetry of urgency is the defining tension of this matchup.

Peter Lambert is expected to take the mound for Houston, while Seth Johnson is set to start for Oakland. Neither name inspires fear, which means the offensive players are likely to determine the outcome. And on the Houston side, that conversation begins and ends with Yordan Alvarez. He's hitting .316 on the season with 42 home runs and 105 RBI — numbers that put him firmly in the MVP conversation regardless of how the Astros' record looks. A pitcher like Johnson, working through a 64-win season, is exactly the kind of arm Alvarez feasts on. If Houston is going to win this game, expect Alvarez to be the reason why.

For Oakland, the offensive load is more distributed. Jeff McNeil leads the club at .266 at the plate, Shea Langeliers has provided 23 home runs, and Lawrence Butler has driven in 62 runs. None of those numbers are going to intimidate anyone, but they're not nothing either — and against a Houston starter who isn't an ace, the Athletics could make some noise. Our model doesn't have a validated read on this one, so we're not going to pretend there's a clean lean. What we can say is this: Alvarez is the most dangerous hitter on the field by a wide margin, Houston has more to play for, and Sutter Health Park has been a house of horrors for the A's all season long. Draw your own conclusions.