Astros’ Springer leaves game against Phillies with injured quad
PHILADELPHIA — Jose Altuve has made a giant dent in Aaron Judge’s American League MVP candidacy, which at the end of the season’s first half looked close to being a slam dunk.
With a second consecutive four-hit performance in the Astros’ 13-4 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on Monday night at Citizens Bank Park, Altuve improved his AL-best batting average to .365. He is batting an astounding .507 in July with six games left in the month. During a careerhigh 16-game hitting streak, he is batting .528.
Altuve’s 1.005 OPS ranks second in the American League behind only the New York Yankees’ Judge (1.083), who has cooled off early in the second half.
Through the Astros’ first 99 games, their star second baseman is on pace to better his production from last season when he placed third in MVP voting.
No major leaguer has batted .500 or better in the month of July since Chipper
Jones hit 500 in 2006. Johnny Mize holds the July record with a .529 average for the month in 1936. Ty Cobb batted .521 in July 1918.
Monday night’s four-hit performance, which followed up Sunday’s four-hit game at Baltimore, was Altuve’s fourth of the season and the 24th of his career. The 2014 and 2016 AL batting champion doubled twice and singled twice. He did not get a chance at that elusive first career five-hit game because Astros manager A.J. Hinch pulled him in the bottom of the seventh inning of a 12-1 game.
Altuve, who is batting .433 in road games, led an 18-hit onslaught by the Astros (66-33) against the Phil-
lies (34-63), the worst team in baseball. Brian McCann and Alex Bregman smoked back-to-back homers off former As tr os pitcher Vince Velasquez in the second.
Bregman, who also doubled twice, became the 10th Astros player this season to reach double digits in home runs. The franchise record for most players with at least 10 homers is 11, set in 2015.
Both starters — the Astros’ Brad Peacock and the Phillies’ Velasquez — pitched only three innings because the game was interrupted by a rain delay that lasted 1 hour, 52 minutes. Peacock allowed a run on two hits. Velasquez, the centerpiece of the package the Astros sent to the Phillies in the December 2015 deal for Ken Giles, gave up four runs on six hits.
Altuve drove in three runs, including two on a two-out single in the fourth inning against Ricardo Pinto, and also scored three times. By reaching base five times — he drew a walk in his first plate appearance — he improved his on-base percentage to .431, just .003 behind Judge’s AL-leading mark.
After the rain delay, Joe Musgrove (5-8) gave the Astros three scoreless innings in which he allowed just two hits. Tony Sipp was knocked around for three runs on three hits and a walk, and James Hoyt logged two score less innings despite allowing three hits.