AL West race with Houston, Texas and Anaheim shaping up as most exciting

Take a look around the league with Big League Stew’s daily wrap up. We’ll hit on all of the biggest moments from the day that you may have missed, while providing highlights, photos and interesting stats.

 The most exciting race for playoff positions down the stretch might come from the American League West where Houston is suddenly scuffling and holds a 11/2-game edge on Texas with those clubs set to face each other in four games starting Monday.

The teams actually play seven times before the end of the regular season and those games could decide who wins the west. The Dallas Morning News had a great breakdown of how the teams stack up and how they have fared against one another this season.

But the Astros also have to worry about Anaheim, which is just 31/2 games back and is going for a series sweep on Sunday. The Angels have beaten the Astros 3-2 in consecutive games and the Astros appear to be too reliant on the long ball to creat offense recently

Houston has lost seven of its past 10 games and hasn’t been good on the road this season even when the club is hitting better than it has been recently.

BIG NIGHT FOR SEAGER IN DODGERS WIN

There are at least three people who will probably never forget the first home run in the career of Dodgers rookie Corey Seager.

One of them obviously is Seager, who collected a total of four hits against Arizona Saturday night in leading Los Angeles to a 9-5 victory over the Diamondbacks.

But an Arizona fan and Diamondbacks left fielder David Peralta also are likely to remember it because it came in the same fifth-inning at-bat as a catchable foul ball down the third baseline that Peralta raced to get to only to have that fan reach over the wall and catch it.

Peralta screamed in disgust and moments later he watched Seager launch his first career home run into the right field seats off pitcher Josh Collmenter. Seager also stole two bases in the game, drove in three runs and scored three times.

CUBS LET DOWN BY BULLPEN AGAIN

For the second time in a week the Chicago Cubs watched an opponent celebrate a victory earned in the late innings against the Cubs’ bullpen.

With the Cubs trying to gain ground on both St. Louis and Pittsburgh in the NL Central, those are two possible wins they might be lamenting at the end of the regular season. Chicago is three 51/2 games behind the Cardinals and three games behind the Pirates for the first wild card spot.

Justin Grimm allowed five runs to Philadelphia in the seventh inning. The Cubs then rallied to tie the score in the eighth with four runs of their own.

But Cody Asche belted a two-run pinch-hit home run to right field in the bottom of the ninth inning to give Philadelphia a walk-off 7-5 win against a Chicago team that has enjoyed a lot of its own walk-off moments this season. Asche’s hit came at the expense of Hector Rondon who has been the least of manager Joe Maddon’s concerns when it comes to the bullpen.

Rondon had allowed only one earned run since the All-Star break prior to Saturday’s game.

Well that was fun, wasn’t it @cody_smasche? pic.twitter.com/UU5clJCZQr

— Phillies (@Phillies) September 13, 2015

TORONTO MAKING HISTORY IN BIG APPLE

Toronto appeared largely unaffected by the loss of shortstop Troy Tulowitzki on Saturday to a fractured shoulder blade in a doubleheader with the Yankees, who are pursuing them in the east division.

All the Blue Jays did was take both games from the Yankees 10-7 and 9-5 increasing their lead in the division to 41/2 games. It was an historic day.

Yankees have lost 7 straight home games vs. @BlueJays – NYY’s worst such stretch in history between the 2 clubs. pic.twitter.com/oyDzFY3wly

— MLB Stat of the Day (@MLBStatoftheDay) September 13, 2015

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Kyle Ringo is a contributing writer to Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KyleRingo