HOUSTON -- Yordan Alvarez’s grip on the American League’s Triple Crown has weakened in the last few weeks, the product of hitting only three homers since the start of August. Alvarez clubbed his career-high 38th homer of the season in the first inning of Sunday’s 3-2 loss to the Diamondbacks at Daikin Park before going hitless in his final four at-bats.
“It felt great to start off the game with a home run,” he said.
Alvarez still leads the AL in batting average at .314, is tied for first place with Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero for the home run lead and his 95th RBI moved him ahead of Baltimore’s Pete Alonso for the AL lead. Alvarez leads Tampa Bay’s Chandler Simpson (.308) for the batting title.
Monday’s off-day -- which comes at the end of a string of 13 consecutive games without a day off -- will give Alvarez a much-needed blow. He leads the club in games played (142) and plate appearances (623) and doesn’t figure to get a rest in any of Houston’s remaining 18 games because of how valuable he is to the offense.
The AL Player of the Month for July, Alvarez is slashing .281/.417/.456 with three homers and 13 RBIs since Aug. 1. Those are solid numbers, but a considerable drop in production from the .324/.426/.641 slash line with 35 homers and 82 RBIs that Alvarez put up through the end of July.
“He’s been pitched very differently, been pitched very tough, which is expected,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “He’s getting his hits, he’s getting his walks. The ball hasn’t left the yard [much] but I think it’s coming. I think there’s going to be a stretch there where he’s going to come out and hit home runs. The quality of the at-bats has been there.”
Alvarez lined out to second base in his second at-bat Sunday on a ball that had a 109.9 mph exit velocity. He came up in the seventh with two outs and runners at first and second and popped out. He struck out swinging on a slider in the dirt against reliever Kevin Ginkel to end the game.
“They’re just going [to] different locations -- more four-seams up, breaking balls out over the plate,” Espada said. “The pitch to drive, he hasn’t gotten many of those.”
Alvarez said it’s no secret he’s being pitched differently. Teams are refusing to let Alvarez beat them and would rather face No. 3-hole Isaac Paredes, whose .778 OPS is more than 200 points lower than Alvarez’s 1.031.
“Sometimes they have their plan and that’s for me to chase, and I think sometimes it has to do with a little bit of anxiety and I start chasing,” Alvarez said. “That’s what I have to work on and just try to be more patient in the future and not chase the pitches they want me to chase.”
There is a lot of pressure on Alvarez considering he’s by far the best hitter in a lineup that’s not deep. The pressure to finish off a Triple Crown season could be wearing on him, as well, and Alvarez said earlier this year that he didn’t want to talk about the Triple Crown with reporters anymore, even though it was a topic seldom broached.
No player has won a Triple Crown since Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers in 2012. He was the first player to do it since Carl Yastrzemski with the Red Sox in 1967.
“Hitting is super difficult,” Alvarez said. “This is something I talk with the guys about sometimes. Per at-bat, you only have one pitch to make good contact and sometimes you’ll have zero pitches to make good contact, so you have to make sure to take advantage of the pitches you get to make good contact.”
Alvarez’s 208 career regular-season homers rank sixth all-time in club history, immediately behind Jimmy Wynn (223). He’s two home runs shy of becoming only the fifth different Astros player to club 40 in a season, though Jeff Bagwell’s club record of 47 in 2000 is looking safe. The last Houston player to hit 40 in a season was Alex Bregman (41) in 2019, which was Alvarez’s rookie season.
The Astros hit the road this week for a challenging road trip at the Phillies and Rays and have a two-game lead (and the tiebreaker) over the Rangers in the AL West. How Alvarez performs down the stretch will be crucial if the Astros are going to close it out. Houston is 19-14 when Alvarez homers and 54-57 when he doesn’t.