This story was excerpted from Brian McTaggart's Astros Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
HOUSTON -- The Astros will play their 81st game of the season Tuesday afternoon against the Blue Jays in Toronto, marking the midpoint of their 162-game schedule. The club remains in the thick of the American League West race and will be looking to build on a strong month of baseball.
In honor of being halfway through the grind of the schedule, here are some Astros first-half superlatives:
Player of the Year: DH Yordan Alvarez
Big surprise, huh? Alvarez hits the midpoint of the schedule as the front-runner for AL Most Valuable Player and smashed his 25th homer Sunday. He was slashing .322/.428/.640 entering Monday and leading the Major Leagues in OPS (1.068), slugging percentage, total bases (181) and extra-base hits (40). In the AL, he was first in hits (91) and homers and second in batting average and RBIs (56).
Pitcher of the Year: RHP Spencer Arrighetti
Arrighetti began the year in Triple-A before being called up in mid-April. He went 7-1 with a 1.34 ERA and 1.13 WHIP in his first eight starts and was named AL Pitcher of the Month for May. He had a 0.93 ERA in five starts in May. Arrighetti has struggled a bit in June with a 6.95 ERA in four starts, but he’s throwing more strikes and walking fewer hitters than he did earlier in the season.
Best defensive play: Brice Matthews throws out Mike Trout
Matthews, who entered the game in left field in the sixth inning after LaMonte Wade Jr. injured his right hamstring, threw out a sliding Mike Trout at the plate in the bottom of the 10th inning to preserve the Astros’ 5-4 win over the Angels on June 8 in Anaheim. Trout was trying to score the tying run after Jose Altuve scored in the top of the 10th tagging up on a shallow popout.
Best performance: Alvarez two homers, six RBIs in one inning
Alvarez followed a two-run homer with a grand slam in the Astros’ nine-run first inning June 12 at Kansas City, a game in which the Astros held on to win, 10-8. Alvarez set a franchise record by driving in six runs in an inning, and his sixth career grand slam put him one shy of the club’s all-time franchise record.
Biggest home run: Altuve at Kansas City
Altuve hit a two-run home run in the eighth inning against the Royals on June 13 to tie the game at 5, moments before a fierce storm rolled through Kauffman Stadium and caused a 91-minute rain delay. The Astros pushed the winning run across in the ninth when Joey Loperfido scored on Christian Walker’s fielder’s choice for an 8-7 win.
Best Game I: Comeback against Pirates
The Astros pulled off their best comeback of the season in a June 3 game started by Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes by rallying from five runs down, scoring twice in the seventh inning and six times after two outs in the eighth, capped by a two-run triple by Cam Smith, to stun the Pirates, 11-9. Houston had been 0-32 when trailing after seven innings this season.
Best Game II: Combined no-hitter
Tatsuya Imai, the former Japanese star whose rocky start to his tenure in Houston played a part in the Astros’ poor April, came through with the best outing of his season by throwing six hitless innings and combining with Steven Okert and Alimber Santa -- in his Major League debut -- to throw the first no-hitter in the Major Leagues in nearly two years in a 9-0 win over the Rangers in Arlington on Memorial Day. It was the Astros’ 18th no-hitter, including the playoffs.
Best Game III: Lambert outduels Ohtani
Peter Lambert, who pitched last season with the Tokyo Yakult Swallows and saw Shohei Ohtani’s face on billboards and commercials, outdueled him by throwing seven scoreless innings in the Astros’ 2-1 win over the Dodgers on May 5. Ohtani, who came into the game with a 0.60 ERA, hadn’t given up a home run to the first 122 batters he had faced this season before Walker and Braden Shewmake took him deep.