HOUSTON -- With the way the Astros have been swinging the bats in the first week of the season, they really didn’t need a rallying cry to break out the lumber again Wednesday afternoon. Red Sox starter Garrett Crochet gave them one, anyway.
Crochet had been pitching Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez inside during each at-bat, even backing him off the plate a couple of times. So when he plunked Alvarez in the ribs with a pitch in the fifth inning, Alvarez flung his bat in frustration. One out later, Carlos Correa cranked a three-run homer to break a tie and send the Astros to their fifth win in a row, 6-4, and a three-game sweep of the Red Sox at Daikin Park.
“Carlos made him pay,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. "That's what happened.”
Crochet, who finished second in the American League Cy Young race last year, didn’t address the hit by pitch postgame. Alvarez, who is slashing .417/.563/.917 with three homers and six RBIs in seven games, expressed his frustration.
“A hit by pitch is something that can hurt my career and finish my career,” he said. “Only he knows if it was intentional or not, but in that situation, I can’t be happy with that.”
The Correa homer, which traveled a Statcast-estimated 402 feet over the left-field wall, was his first of the season and gave Houston a 5-2 lead. It made a winner out of Mike Burrows, who gave up two earned runs, five hits, three walks and struck out six batters in five innings in his second start with the Astros.
“You always hate to see your best hitter get drilled like that,” Correa said. “Alvarez was pretty upset that a couple of pitches almost hit him. You take a little extra special [motivation] when it’s like that.”
After losing their first two games of the season, scoring a total of two runs, the Astros have scored 43 runs during their winning streak, averaging 8.6 runs per game. It’s the first time they’ve scored at least six runs in five consecutive games since Aug. 26-30, 2023.
The Astros, having overhauled their hitting coaches and philosophy in the offseason, have emphasized being patient and working counts, which is something they got away from last year. They’re averaging 4.6 walks per game at the plate, swinging at better pitches and chasing less.
“I just think that we are just more patient,” Espada said. “The first couple of games, it’s the hype of the season and the emotions are high, but then we settled down. Let’s not forget who we are. Let’s go back to forcing these guys to throw pitches and have good swings. Just up and down our lineup, a ton of good at-bats.”
No player has exemplified this better approach more than veteran second baseman Jose Altuve, who has more walks (eight) than strikeouts (five) in his first 31 plate appearances. Last year, he struck out nearly twice as many times as he walked.
Last year, he had a 50 percent swing rate, 38.9 percent chase rate and 63.5 percent in-zone swing rate.
Through seven games this year, he has a 33.9 percent swing rate, 23.7 percent chase rate and 49 percent in-zone swing rate.
“We talked about this today,” Correa said. “I think he’s realizing that with the ABS [challenge system] and the zone now and his [strike] box, it’s really hard to throw your best stuff and land it in that box. He understands that. He knows they got to come in and he knows every pitch he sees that is not in the zone, he can challenge now.”
Altuve, who said in the spring that he has no plans to use the ABS system, challenged a pitch in the second inning that was called a strike and had it overturned to a ball. The Crochet pitch was 1.5 inches below the strike zone.
“Top to bottom, I love the at-bats I’m seeing,” Correa said.
Correa, who was reacquired from the Twins in July after 3 1/2 seasons in Minnesota, said the Astros’ improved approach at the plate reminds him of his first stint in Houston, which included a World Series title in 2017 and AL championships in ‘19 and ‘21.
“Everybody is buying into the approach, everybody is making the pitcher work, working deep counts,” he said. “It was great today against a great pitcher.”