ARLINGTON -- The early favorite for American League Most Valuable Player might be wearing an Astros uniform.
Yordan Alvarez crushed a pair of home runs for the second game in a row, including the go-ahead shot in the eighth inning, which traveled a Statcast-projected 448 feet, to send the Astros to their eighth win in 12 games, 4-3, over the Rangers at Globe Life Field.
Alvarez has five home runs in three games of the series against the Rangers to tie White Sox rookie Munetaka Murakami for the AL lead in homers with 20. Murakami also walloped his 20th homer run of the season on Monday, but both trail Kyle Schwarber of the Phillies, who has 21 homers, for the Major League lead.
Alvarez, who reached 20 homers in the Astros’ 57th game -- the fewest games to reach that mark in team history -- was intentionally walked in the ninth inning with a runner at first base and two outs.
Astros starter Mike Burrows held the Rangers to two runs, five hits and one walk and struck out six batters in seven innings and picked up the win after Alvarez led off the eighth with a homer. Houston scored a second run in the inning on a Rangers error for a 4-2 lead, a run which loomed large.
Burrows allowed three singles among the first four hitters of the game, with leadoff hitter Joc Pederson coming around to score on a single by Brandon Nimmo. Taylor Trammell led off the second with a double for the Astros and scored on a Braden Shewmake sacrifice fly to tie the game.
Pederson clubbed a homer to right field to lead off the fourth, but Alvarez led off the fourth for the Astros with a Statcast-projected 422-foot homer to straightaway center field off Rangers starter Jacob deGrom, tying the game at 2.
Burrows retired 15 of the final 17 batters he faced after the Pederson home run. Pederson led off the eighth with another homer -- this one off left-hander Bryan King -- to bring the Rangers to within a run, 4-3.