ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Yordan Alvarez was expecting to take a strike with a 3-0 count and the score tied in the eighth inning for the Houston Astros against the Texas Rangers.<\/p>\n
Then came a slider, and the Houston slugger just liked the look of it.<\/p>\n
Next thing Alvarez knew, he had homered twice in consecutive games for the first time in his eight big league seasons, and put the Astros in front for good in a 4-3 victory Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike, who swings on a 3-0 slider and hits it 110 (mph) to the batter\u2019s eye?\u201d Jeremy Pe\u00f1a asked as part of an answer to what he thought was Alvarez’s most impressive at-bat in a 3-for-4 night. \u201cThat goes to show that he\u2019s two steps ahead. He knew that they weren\u2019t going to challenge him with something hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rangers weren’t trying to challenge him at all. And they didn’t in the ninth inning, when they walked Alvarez intentionally right after Pe\u00f1a’s single. That led Houston’s leadoff hitter and shortstop to playfully tell the powerful man following him in the lineup, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to thank me for that walk. You owe me that walk.\u201d<\/p>\n
The question for Texas manager Skip Schumaker was why he didn’t walk Alvarez intentionally an inning earlier when Rangers reliever Tyler Alexander had already thrown him three balls.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tough to walk the leadoff hitter, no doubt, with a tie game in the eighth inning,\u201d Schumaker said while also mentioning he would have been fine with a walk to Alvarez in that spot. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve ever done that before. But the way he\u2019s hitting, hindsight is always maybe we should have just put him on at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alvarez has 17 home runs in 33 games at Globe Life Field, including five in the first three games of this four-game series that ends Thursday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cApparently, I love playing here,\u201d Alvarez said through an interpreter.<\/p>\n
He reached 20 for the season in his 56th game \u2014 the fastest Houston slugger to reach that mark while doing it on the same night as Munetaka Murakami of Chicago White Sox. Philadelphia’s Kyle Schwarber leads the majors with 21 homers.<\/p>\n
Alvarez’s first solo homer pulled Houston even at 2-2 against Texas ace Jacob deGrom, who struck out Alvarez in the first inning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was joking with the guys in the dugout that it was kind of like he was throwing me, like, Playstation style, just dotting the corners,\u201d Alvarez said. \u201cBut in the second at-bat, I was able to adjust.\u201d<\/p>\n
The homer off Alexander went 448 feet to deep right-center field, landing not far from his 449-foot drive a night earlier \u2014 a three-run shot that was the first of two when Houston lost 10-7 after falling behind 8-0 in the first inning.<\/p>\n
Alvarez leads the American League with a .306 average and is fourth in the AL with 39 RBIs, one behind teammate Christian Walker.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a combination of skills and intelligence,\u201d Houston manager Joe Espada said. \u201cYou guys see the skills. I see the intelligence. In between at-bats, how he talks through an at-bat, \u2018This is what I\u2019m looking for, I\u2019m going to stay within myself and I\u2019m going to try to do something.\u2019 There is a level of intelligence and calm through his at-bats that I have never, ever seen in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Yordan Alvarez was expecting to take a strike with a 3-0 count and the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":827159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5130],"tags":[339665,31807,4345,34548,34552,72338,8321,223492,223490,324435,138641,358,3187,87080,115777],"class_list":["post-827158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-astros-yordan-alvarez-homers","tag-christian-walker","tag-houston","tag-jacob-degrom","tag-jeremy-pena","tag-joe-espada","tag-kyle-schwarber","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-skip-schumaker","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-tyler-alexander","tag-yordan-alvarez"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116650625498053560","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}