HOUSTON -- Perhaps the player that Yordan Alvarez gets compared to the most is Hall of Famer David Ortiz, who was also an intimidating left-handed slugger with prodigious power. It’s a comparison that resonates when you consider each player’s ability to change the game with one swing from the left side of the plate.
Alvarez, who is 6-foot-4 and 237 pounds, still fashions himself to be an athlete more than a guy who can only affect the game when the bat is in his hands. That was the case in the fourth inning of Saturday’s 5-4 win over the Rangers at Daikin Park, where Alvarez scored from third base on a wild pitch with the game-winning run.
The Astros ran their win streak to five games, which ties a season high, and their 10th win in their past 11 games pushed their lead in the American League West to 1 1/2 games over the Rangers. The game was played on the 10th anniversary of the trade that sent Alvarez to the Dodgers in exchange for reliever Josh Fields, so it was only fitting he left his mark -- and it was with his legs and not his bat.
“He can move really well,” Astros first baseman Christian Walker said. “He’s faster than people realize. That’s a big body, but he can move. He’s light on his feet, for sure. The run is important, and the message it sends also to the team for a guy like him to be hustling and scoring runs, that’s huge.”
An RBI single in the second inning by LaMonte Wade Jr. and a two-run single in the third with the bases loaded by Taylor Trammell put the Astros ahead, 3-1. The Rangers scored twice in the top of the fourth to tie the game before Walker legged out an infield single with the bases loaded to score Jeremy Peña with the go-ahead run in the bottom of the fourth.
Alvarez, who had been intentionally walked, moved to third base on Walker’s hit, and he scored on a wild pitch by reliever Cole Winn that bounced away from catcher Elias Díaz. Alvarez slid home just ahead of the tag from Winn, who was covering the plate. The Rangers challenged the call, but it was upheld after review.
The run wound up being the difference in the game after Díaz clubbed a solo homer in the sixth off Enyel De Los Santos.
When asked what he thought of the AL’s leading candidate for Most Valuable Player sliding home and trying to score, Astros manager Joe Espada simulated holding his breath on the postgame interview podium. And for good reason.
Last year, three weeks after he returned after missing 100 games while recovering from a broken bone in his hand, Alvarez suffered a season-ending ankle sprain Sept. 15 against the Rangers while scoring from first base on an error and stepping awkwardly on the plate. The injury likely cost the Astros a playoff berth, considering they fell one win shy of their ninth consecutive playoff appearance.
“He’s a very good athlete when he gets going,” Espada said. “You just don’t want to see him sliding like that. Again, it demonstrates how athletic he is, and he avoided the tag.”
Alvarez hit a top sprint speed of 27.3 feet per second while running home, which is faster than his season average sprint speed of 24.9 feet per second. He understood the significance of the 90 feet.
“I don’t know where that came from of him not being an athlete,” Trammell said. “I see it sometimes where there's a hustle double or a hustle single or anything like that. I see it, you see it, everybody sees it. That guy, you can’t hit like that and not be athletic.
“He’s one of the best. He comes in and works hard each and every day, he’s always putting in work, whatever it may be. In the weight room, whatever it is, he’s always somewhere doing something. A lot of respect for him, but he’s an athlete.”
Alvarez went 1-for-3 with two runs scored and was walked two more times intentionally, giving him 22 intentional walks this year. The franchise record is 27, set by Jeff Bagwell in 1997.