Going for four straight wins
Back home. The team is starting to feel themselves again after they got back on track with a big series sweep of the Royals over the weekend. Now they’ll take on the division-leading Houston Astros for the first of four games to kick off a nice weeklong homestand and hopefully secure their 30th win of the year tonight.
The Athletics will welcome a familiar face to the broadcast team tonight as former fan favorite Tony Kemp joins the broadcast for his first time calling an A’s game:
Tony Kemp is back with the A’s as a broadcaster. Making his on-air debut tonight, Kemp will be featured on pre- and postgame coverage on A’s Cast on NBC Sports California and will also serve as a television and radio analyst for select series this summer.
— Martín Gallegos (@MartinJGallegos) June 16, 2025
Kemp played four years with the Athletics and was beloved for his heart and hustle during some tough losing seasons. We’ll be seeing more of him for the rest of the season, with appearances in the booth coming soon enough.
The starting pitcher for the home team tonight was only revealed a couple of hours ago. Right-hander Mitch Spence was always in line for the start and the A’s made that official this afternoon, preparing to send the second-year pitcher to the mound for what will be his third start this season. He’s looked terrific in his lone two starts since returning to the starting five, tossing five innings in both starts and allowing just one run on six total hits. He’ll aim to keep that up tonight against an Astros team h
The A’s lineup tonight shakes out like this
A’s lineup vs. Astros (RH Ryan Gusto)
Butler RF, Wilson SS, Soderstrom LF, Rooker DH, Kurtz 1B, Muncy 3B, Bleday CF, MacIver C, Schuemann 2B; Spence P pic.twitter.com/jIXV0uDA9F— Martín Gallegos (@MartinJGallegos) June 16, 2025
A couple regulars will get the day off tonight as center field will be manned by JJ Bleday, giving Denzel Clarke a day off. Expect to see Clarke enter the game in the final innings as a defensive replacement. And Luis Urias will ride the bench tonight, making way for Max Schuemann to take over the keystone. The catcher tonight will be rookie Willie MacIver.
The Astros’ original scheduled starter for tonight’s series opener was supposed to be veteran righty Lance McCullers Jr., but he was a late scratch this morning when the team announced that he had suffered a foot sprain and would instead land on the IL. It’s yet another tough injury development for McCullers after he missed all of 2024 and 2023 seasons, and most of 2022 due to elbow problems. He finally returned to a major league mound over a month ago and he’d made seven starts before this latest development.
Taking McCullers’ place as the starting pitcher tonight will be right-hander Ryan Gusto. The 26-year-old has bounced between starting and relieving this season, making 15 appearances while also getting nine starts under his belt. He’s been nails out of the bullpen with a sub-1 ERA in his relief outings, but a bloated 5.45 ERA in his nine starts. Overall he’s sporting a 4.56 ERA on the season.
The Houston lineup for tonight’s series opener looks like this:
Gonna be a late one, H-Town.
⚾️: 9:05 PM CDT | 7:05 PM PDT
: @SpaceCityHN
️: @SportsTalk790 | Spanish: 93.3 FMhttps://t.co/W06pfHQMR1 x @reliantenergy pic.twitter.com/ZHuShqHKa9— Houston Astros (@astros) June 16, 2025
We’re 0-2 so far against these guys this season. Time to snag our first win and start embracing spoiler mode. Let’s go A’s!