Houston Astros (47-94) at Oakland Athletics (81-60), 3:05 p.m. (CT)

Houston at Oakland, 3:05 pm (CT)

TV: CSN Houston, MLB.TV
Radio: KBME 790 AM, KLAT 1010 AM
Athletics SBNation Blog: Athletics Nation

Pitching Match

LHP Brett Oberholtzer (4-1 / 2.79 ERA / 1.06 WHIP) vs. RHP Dan Straily (8-7 / 4.38 ERA / 1.30 WHIP)

Preview

The Astros toyed with a comeback in the 9th last night. While the comeback came up short, at the team still showing the same passion that possessed they had from the start of the season. At the level of passion after the team let go of Carlos Pena and Ronny Cedeno and went full youth movement.

Part of that youth movement was Brett Oberholtzer,he has a 4-1 record and a 1.98 ERA since joining the rotation at the trade deadline. Five of his six start have been quality starts. In his most recent start, he held the Mariners to only four hits in a complete game shutout.

Josh Donaldson, who had a home run and two runs batted in yesterday, is batting .335 (52-155) with 27 extra-base hits against left-handed pitching. Nate Freiman is batting .319 (43-135) with 13 extra-base hits against lefties. Coco Crisp kept his hitting streak alive last night, he now has hits in nine straight games.

Dan Straily makes his 24 start this season for the A's today. Straily may be a fan of the day game, 3-1 with a 2.63 ERA compared to 5-6 with a 5.21 ERA at night. That includes his most recent start on September 2, Straily allowed the Rangers' only two runs as result of a David Murphy home run. He only allowed three hits over five innings in the win against Texas. Straily made his first start of the season against the Astros way back on April 5, holding the Astros to two runs over 6.2 innings.

Jose Altuve was 2-for-3 with a run batted in Houston's lone appearance against Straily. Jason Castro returned to the lineup for the first time since September 2 going 0-for-5. Matt Dominguez broke a streak of six games with a run batted in by getting two last night.