HOUSTON -- If there was any doubt Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez was the front-runner to win his first American League Most Valuable Player Award, the events of the last few days have likely cleared that up.
Alvarez cranked the Astros’ first grand slam of the season -- and the fifth of his career -- to move into the AL lead in homers and RBIs, leading Houston to a 13-2 rout of the A’s on Saturday at Daikin Park. Alvarez was 1-for-3 with a walk and two runs scored.
Alvarez entered Saturday second in the AL in batting average (.316), trailing Yandy Díaz of the Rays (.320). He was third in RBIs with 44, trailing teammate Christian Walker (46) and the Yankees’ Ben Rice (45), while leading the league in homers. His second-inning grand slam gave him 22 homers and 48 RBIs, putting him at or near the lead in the AL in the three Triple Crown categories -- average, home runs and RBIs.
The Astros also got homers from Lamonte Wade Jr. -- his first with Houston -- and Jose Altuve, who led off the third inning with the 260th homer of his career. Houston scored five times in the third behind the homers from Wade and Alvarez and added six runs in the fifth, including two-run doubles by Wade and Jeremy Peña.
In MLB.com’s second MVP poll of the season revealed earlier this week, Alvarez was the front-runner in the AL, edging out Aaron Judge of the Yankees in a survey of 35 MLB.com experts. But that was before Judge landed on the injured list with a stress fracture of his right first rib cage, an injury suffered in Houston in April.
The Yankees said that Judge will be re-imaged in four to six weeks to assess healing and the appropriate next steps in his recovery, which could take Judge -- the winner of three of the last four AL MVP Awards -- out of the MVP race. Bobby Witt Jr. of the Royals was third in the MLB.com survey and Rice was fourth.
The closest any Astros player has come to winning the Triple Crown is Jeff Bagwell’s National League MVP 1994 season, when he was second in the NL in batting average and home runs and first in RBIs. The only other time an Astros player finished in the top five in all three Triple Crown categories was Alvarez in 2022 – homers (3rd), average (4th) and RBIs (5th). That season, he finished third in AL MVP voting behind Judge and Shohei Ohtani.