Pennant Race Roundup. Astros gain a game in the division and the Yankees claim first place

The Rangers offer a huge help for Houston and the Rays slug against Cleveland to drop them down in seeding

We shouldn’t be celebrating a win like this as much as we are, but the Astros finally manage to take a game against Oakland.

This combined with some of the other results around the league put them in a better spot for the playoffs as the season continues to wind down. Let check out what happened around the league in Astros Daily.

Houston Astros (78-68): 6, Oakland Athletics (64-83): 3

It took till the last game of the series, but Houston finally got a game on the A’s.

Houston got the scoring started in the second. After a Jon Singleton ground-rule double, Jason Hayward stepped up and sent a 0-2 curveball over the right field fence for his seventh homer of the season and his first as an Astros.

This was all the scoring for the majority of the game. The next runs to cross the plate were in the seventh and it was by Oakland. A leadoff double allowed for a one-out single to score a run and in the next inning, they tied it at two on a Brent Rooker home run.

This was when the Astros broke the game open. Two one-out hits in the eighth set them up to score and two back-to-back two-out base hits plated two more runs and after an intentional walk, another base hit scored two more, putting the Astros up 6-2.

The A’s got one more run on a Tyler Nevin bomb in the ninth, but it was not enough to bring them back, with the Astros winning 6-3. This put them back up four games in the division but still six back from the next closest division leader.

Seattle Mariners (74-73): 4, Texas Rangers (71-76): 5

In a huge game for both the Mariners and Astros for the division, the Rangers sent out rookie Kumar Rocker for his major league debut. The Rangers helped him out early, giving him a 1-0 lead in the second on a Josh Jung home run.

The M’s matched that in the fourth on a Justin Turner home run and took the lead the next inning with a four-run inning, putting them up 4-1 at the end of the fifth.

The Rangers got one back with a home run of their own in the seventh off the bat of Nathaniel Lowe and came back and took the lead thanks to a three-run eighth. It started with a Marcus Semien home run and was capped off by an RBI-single from Lowe to put them up 5-4.

This Mariners loss puts the Astros back up by four and a half in the AL West after the Astros loss the day before.

Games that also matter

New York Yankees: 2, Boston Red Sox: 1

With the Yankees still competing for the one seed in the American League, they need every win they can. This one puts them just a game up on the Guardians and puts them in place for the one seed if the season ended today. A fantastic outing from Nester Cortes and a walk off for Juan Soto gave them that big win that they were looking for in the first game of the Sox series.

Tampa Bay Rays: 5, Cleveland Guardians: 2

As much as the Guardians needed the win to gain another game on the Yankees, they couldn’t get it done against the Rays. After two runs in the first two innings from the Guardians, they went silent and allowed the Rays to come back and win. They couldn’t get anything going on offense and it led to this. They are now the two seed in the American League and fall below the Yankees by a full game. If they want to keep the one seed the held all year, they will need every win they can get.