The Astros are down to eight games left, and Saturday’s meeting with the Braves carries real weight in Houston’s push to stay alive in the AL West chase. After dropping Friday’s opener, the Astros will try to even the series in the second game of their final home set of the regular season.
Hayden Wesneski gets the ball for Houston. The right-hander is 5-2 with a 3.70 ERA. Atlanta will counter with Grant Holmes, who enters at 9-5 with a 3.49 ERA.
Houston’s pitching has been a major reason the club has hung around. Over its last 13 home games, Astros starters have posted a 2.40 ERA, giving up 17 earned runs in 63.2 innings.
In 11 of those games, they allowed two runs or fewer. Zoom out a bit further, and Houston starters have put up a 3.28 ERA over the club’s last 25 games since August 21.
The Braves arrive with momentum after Friday’s 6-2 win, a game that locked up their postseason berth. Michael Harris II, Ronald Acuña Jr. and Matt Olson all delivered two-run homers, with Harris opening the scoring in the fourth inning, Acuña adding to the lead in the seventh and Olson finishing it off in the ninth with his 40th homer of the season.
Tyler Mahle also played a huge role for Atlanta, holding Houston to one run and three hits across six innings while striking out six. The Astros had chances to chip away, but the Braves kept them from breaking through, including an Acuña catch in the eighth that stopped Houston from pulling any closer at that point.
The loss left Houston and Texas tied at 77-77 in the AL West race. The Astros still own the tiebreaker over the Rangers after winning the season series 9-4.
This matchup also carries the weight of a long rivalry. Houston and Atlanta have met 720 times in the regular season and 25 more times in the postseason.
The Braves hold a 388-332 edge overall, and they controlled the early playoff meetings in 1997, 1999 and 2001 before the Astros answered in 2004 and 2005. The clubs met again in the 2021 World Series, which Atlanta won in six games.
Yordan Álvarez remains one of the biggest individual stories in the American League race. The Astros designated hitter is a leading American League MVP candidate and sits first or second in all three Triple Crown categories.
He leads the league in batting average at .312, is second in home runs with 40 and second in RBI with 99. He also tops the majors in OPS at 1.031, slugging percentage at .600 and on-base percentage at .431.
Since Carl Yastrzemski won the American League Triple Crown in 1967, the majors have seen just one other Triple Crown winner: Miguel Cabrera in 2012.
Among the American League leaders, Álvarez’s .312 batting average tops Simpson at .308 and Yandy Díaz at .293. In home runs, Caminero leads with 41, followed by Álvarez at 40 and Rice at 39. In RBI, Alonso is first with 105, Álvarez is next with 99 and Caminero is third with 97.
In Other News...
Jim Crane May Be Running Out Of Time To Reset Astros
The Astros are at a point in the season where the losses are starting to carry more weight than the talk around them. After getting swept by the Braves, Houston is staring up in both the AL West and the wild card race, a sharp reminder of how far the club has drifted since its 2022 World Series title run. The core still has name value, but the group looks older and less imposing, and the conversation around the franchise has shifted from chasing October to figuring out what comes next.
Reports that Joe Espada and Dana Brown could be on their way out only add to the sense that a reset is coming, one way or another. Jim Crane has a decision to make about how aggressively he wants to address the decline, because this is no longer just about one bad stretch or one disappointing series. The Astros have reached the point where changes at the top could be the cleanest way to signal a new direction, even if the most important part of that answer is still waiting to be revealed. [Read more 🡒]
Astros Keep Wasting Winnable Games At The Worst Possible Time
Another winnable series slipped away for Houston in Atlanta, where the Astros were swept over three games and left with the same frustrating questions that have followed them through too many tight nights this season. The starting pitching never gave the bullpen much relief, with each starter failing to get through six innings, and that left a taxed relief corps trying to protect leads without much margin for error.
The missed chances at the plate were just as costly, especially with runners on and the game hanging in the balance. Atlanta came through with the bigger swings when it mattered, and Houston could not match that clutch power at the end of an uneven series that felt especially damaging given the timing. [Read more 🡒]
Astros Catching Prospect Is Forcing A Bigger Conversation Than Expected
Jason Schiavones first full pro season has already turned into something the Astros cant just file away as a nice development note. Drafted in 2024, the catcher moved through three minor league levels and put together a rare all-around season, finishing with 32 home runs and 32 stolen bases. For a player behind the plate, that kind of production instantly changes the conversation from simple prospect watch to whether Houston might be looking at something far more unusual.
Jeff Bagwell has already singled out Schiavones power, on-base ability and defensive skills, and those are the kinds of traits that can make a catching prospect impossible to ignore. The strikeout rate is still part of the picture, but when a minor league catcher does something no one has done since 1981, the Astros have to think bigger about where he fits and how quickly he could matter at the major league level. [Read more 🡒]