Astros vs. Athletics Recap: Houston Routs A's 13-2 to Set Up a Winner-Take-All Finale
This piece covers games through Saturday, September 26 and previews Sunday’s still-unplayed Game 162 without predicting a winner. Once that game ends, it needs a follow-up (or a rewrite) stating the actual final score and which team won the AL West.
Everything else on the page is unaffected; the figures below still say when they were read.
- 🔑 The Astros routed the Athletics 13-2 on Saturday, September 26, 2026, hitting five home runs and racking up 16 hits at Sutter Health Park. The win moved Houston to 80-81, matching the Texas Rangers, who beat the Minnesota Twins 6-2 the same day, pushing the AL West race to Sunday’s Game 162.
- Yordan Alvarez hit a three-run homer, his 42nd of the season, tying him for second in the American League home run race. Jeremy Peña added two two-run homers, and Peña, Isaac Paredes and Jose Altuve combined for nine hits and seven RBIs as Houston’s offense overwhelmed the Athletics’ pitching staff.
- On Friday, September 25, the Athletics beat the Astros 6-5, with Henry Bolte and Michael Stefanic each driving in two runs in the sixth inning and Hogan Harris earning his 17th save. The Rangers lost 10-2 to the Twins that same day, leaving both AL West clubs at 79-81 entering Saturday.
- Houston and Texas enter Sunday, September 27, 2026, tied at 80-81 with one game left apiece. Houston can clinch the division with a win over the Athletics, or if both teams lose their finales; Texas needs to beat the Twins and needs the Astros to lose to have any path to the division.
- Houston holds the season-series tiebreaker over Texas, 9 games to 4, so the Astros take the division if both finish 81-81. Whichever club wins the AL West is guaranteed to finish with no better than a .500 record, an outcome described as unprecedented for a division champion in a 162-game season.
- This recap covers only games already completed plus neutral schedule information. No betting odds, point spreads, or win-probability models appear anywhere on this page, and Sunday’s still-undecided division outcome is not predicted or implied anywhere in this article.
The Houston Astros routed the Athletics 13-2 on Saturday, September 26, 2026, hitting five home runs and piling up 16 hits to pull level with the Texas Rangers at 80-81 in the American League West. The result, at the Athletics’ temporary home of Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, California, sent the division race to Sunday’s Game 162 — the last day of the 2026 regular season. Here’s what happened over the weekend and what’s still left to decide.
What was the final score of Saturday’s Astros-Athletics game?
The Astros beat the Athletics 13-2 on Saturday, September 26, 2026. Houston hit five home runs and finished with 16 hits as a team. Yordan Alvarez hit a three-run homer, his 42nd of the season, tying him for second in the American League home run race. Jeremy Peña added two more home runs, both two-run shots, and Peña, Isaac Paredes and Jose Altuve combined for nine hits and seven RBIs. The win moved Houston’s record to 80-81.
What happened in Friday’s game?
The Athletics beat the Astros 6-5 on Friday, September 25, 2026, in the series opener at Sutter Health Park. Henry Bolte and Michael Stefanic each drove in two runs in the sixth inning, and Hogan Harris closed it out with a hitless ninth for his 17th save of the season. Texas lost 10-2 to the Minnesota Twins that same day, so both AL West clubs sat at 79-81 entering Saturday’s games.
| Date | Score |
|---|---|
| Fri 9/25 | A’s 6, Astros 5 |
| Sat 9/26 | Astros 13, A’s 2 |
| Sat 9/26 | Rangers 6, Twins 2 |
Where do the Astros and Rangers stand entering Sunday’s finale?
Houston and Texas both enter Sunday, September 27, 2026, at 80-81, with one game left apiece. The Rangers’ 6-2 win over the Twins on Saturday kept them even with the Astros. Houston closes its season against the Athletics at Sutter Health Park, while Texas hosts Minnesota for the finale. Whichever club finishes with the better record — or wins the tiebreaker if the records match — takes the AL West title and the American League’s No. 3 seed.
How does the Astros-Rangers tiebreaker work?
Houston holds the season-series tiebreaker over Texas, having won their 2026 head-to-head matchups 9 games to 4. Under MLB’s tiebreaker rules, that means the Astros take the division outright if both teams finish Sunday with identical records — including if both Houston and Texas lose their final games. Texas can only win the division by beating the Twins and getting help in the form of a Houston loss to the Athletics.
What time is Sunday’s Astros-Athletics finale, and how can we watch?
First pitch for the Astros-Athletics regular-season finale is scheduled for 3:05 PM ET on Sunday, September 27, 2026. The game is set to air on NBC Sports California and the Space City Home Network, with streaming available through the usual live-TV services. It’s the 162nd and final game of the regular season for both AL West contenders.
Why won’t the AL West champion have a winning record?
Because both the Astros and Rangers enter the finale at 80-81, the division winner cannot finish with a winning record. The best either club can do is 81-81 — an exact .500 mark — by winning its own finale, and either team could finish below .500 if the division instead comes down to the tiebreaker after both clubs lose on Sunday. Multiple outlets tracking the race have noted that a division champion and postseason qualifier without a winning record across a full 162-game season would be unprecedented in MLB history.
What’s next for the division winner?
The AL West champion earns the division’s automatic postseason berth and the American League’s No. 3 seed. The loser of the division race isn’t necessarily finished for the year, either — MLB’s expanded wild-card format leaves a path open depending on how the rest of the American League field settles on the same afternoon. For the full picture of every postseason race, tiebreaker and bracket scenario heading into the season’s last day, see our rundown of the 2026 MLB playoff picture .
Bottom line
Saturday’s blowout kept Houston’s fate in its own hands. A win over the Athletics on Sunday clinches the AL West for the Astros regardless of what Texas does against Minnesota; anything short of that hands the Rangers a path, provided they beat the Twins. Check back after the 3:05 PM ET first pitch for the final score and the division decision.
How we verified this
Saturday, September 26’s final score (Astros 13, Athletics 2) and its box-score detail — Yordan Alvarez’s three-run homer, Jeremy Peña’s two two-run homers, and the Peña/Paredes/Altuve nine-hit, seven-RBI combined line — were checked against multiple independent box-score and game-story sources, including a primary league game-story page and outlets that publish official box-score data, with matching figures across all of them.
Friday’s 6-5 Athletics win, including the sixth-inning RBIs from Henry Bolte and Michael Stefanic and Hogan Harris’s 17th save, plus Sunday’s scheduled first pitch (3:05 PM ET on NBC Sports California and the Space City Home Network) were each confirmed against at least two independent source types, including league-affiliated broadcast pages.
The 80-81 records for both Houston and Texas, the 9-4 Astros-Rangers season-series tiebreaker, and the Rangers’ 6-2 win over the Twins on Saturday (following a 10-2 loss Friday) were checked against league standings data as well as independent recaps. An earlier snapshot showing both clubs at 79-81 reflected the standings before Saturday’s games finished and was superseded once Saturday’s final scores posted — that 79-81 figure is cited here only to describe Saturday morning’s entering records, not Sunday’s.
No betting odds, point spreads, or win-probability models appear anywhere on this page. Sunday, September 27’s regular-season finale had not been played as of this writing (mid-morning Eastern time, hours before the scheduled 3:05 PM ET first pitch), so this piece does not state or imply who wins the AL West — that outcome was still unresolved at publication and should be confirmed before this page is treated as current.