Two Losing Records, One Crown: The AL West Comes Down to Sunday Afternoon

Somebody is going to win the American League West with a record that would get most managers fired. The only question left is who.

Houston and Texas both woke up Sunday at 80-81. The Astros hold the tiebreaker after taking the season series, which makes the math simple for them and cruel for the Rangers. Houston wins the division with a victory in West Sacramento or a Texas loss in Minneapolis. The Rangers need both: their own win and an Astros loss.

Whichever club gets there will make a strange kind of history. No team has ever won a division at .500 or worse in a full season, and the champion will finish with the lowest winning percentage of any playoff team outside a shortened year. The 2005 Padres, who went 82-80, have held that mark for two decades.

Texas kept its hopes alive in the rain

The Rangers had every excuse to fold on Saturday. They were coming off a 10-2 beating in Minnesota, had just lost Josh Jung to a broken hand, and then sat through a rain delay of just over two hours before the first pitch.

Instead they scored four runs in the second inning, all with two outs. Nicky Lopez started it with a double, Danny Jansen's bloop fell in and a throwing error let him take second, and Evan Carter, Alejandro Osuna and Brandon Nimmo followed with RBI doubles. Jansen later led off the fourth with a home run and Jake Burger hit his team-best 28th in the fifth. The bottom three hitters in the order went 6 for 11. Texas won 6-2.

Nimmo, playing through cramps, saved two runs with a diving backhanded catch in right that sent him tumbling. Nathan Eovaldi, in his first start since Aug. 7, gave up one run over 4 1/3 innings before Robert Garcia took over. The one worry: Lopez left in the fourth with a left ankle and heel injury.

I always say, you worry about tomorrow tomorrow. You have to win today. Tomorrow's pretty important, too.

That was manager Skip Schumaker afterward. Jansen admitted he had never been part of a game like the one coming Sunday.

Houston answered later that night

Any hope in the Rangers clubhouse that the Athletics might do them a favor lasted about five innings. The Astros hit five home runs and beat the A's 13-2. Yordan Alvarez's three-run shot in the fifth, his 42nd of the season, made it 6-1 and tied him with Tampa Bay's Junior Caminero for second in the league. Jeremy Peña went 4 for 6 with two two-run homers, Isaac Paredes homered in the first, and Hayden Wesneski covered seven innings, allowing two runs.

How to follow it Sunday

The two games start five minutes apart, so expect a lot of scoreboard watching. Houston plays the Athletics at Sutter Health Park at 3:05 p.m. ET, with Peter Lambert listed against Seth Johnson; it's on Space City Home Network in Houston. Texas visits Target Field at 3:10 p.m. ET, with MacKenzie Gore (8-11, 4.59 ERA) facing Dean Kremer (4-5, 4.97), who has allowed two runs or fewer in each of his last three starts. That one airs on Rangers Sports Network. Both games are also on MLB.TV, and live scores are on the TVRivo scores page.

A Houston win ends it early and sends the Astros into the playoffs as the AL's No. 3 seed. Anything else, and Texas gets its chance to steal the division on the final afternoon of the season.