ALTUVE EXTENDING REACH AS A HITTER
All-Star second baseman still adding to already potent game at the plate, increasing power and improving eye
Passing time in the dugout during a recent game, Astros starters Lance McCullers and Collin McHugh engaged in a fun exercise.
If forced into a scenario in which they had to face their teammates, how would they pitch them?
McCullers and McHugh began at the top with leadoff man George Springer and ran through the Astros’ lineup. Game plans were formulated for each hitter. Except for one. The pitchers skipped Jose Altuve, opting to revisit that nightmare at the end of the conversation.
“We didn’t really come to a conclusion,” McCullers said.
Such is the dilemma pitchers face on a dailybasisagainstAltuve,theAstrossecond baseman who Tuesday in San Diego will start his second consecutive All-Star Game. An ever-evolving human hit machine who at 5-6 also happens to bat with the smallest strike zone in baseball, he has becomeoneof the most difficult outs in baseball.
Especially this season, a so far MVPcaliber campaign in which the 26-year-old Venezuelan has vastly refined his command of the strike zone and added a newfound level of power to his game.
“The proof is in the pudding,” said fivetime All-Star lefthander Chris Sale of the Chicago White Sox, who last week found himself on the opposite end of Altuve’s 14th homerun of the season. “He’s definitely one of the best hitters in all of baseball.”
If holes exist in Altuve’s offensive game, his ability to adjust ensures their openings to be fleeting. With uncanny hand-eye coordination, he has an innate talent to manipulate his bat to connect the barrel to the ball on pitches he has no business even swinging at.
Like in a game early last month, when he offered at a Zack Greinke curveball a couple of inches down and a few inches away from the strike zone and poked it into right field. It was the only hit the Arizona Diamondbacks righthander allowed among the 37 breaking balls he threw over a dominant seven innings that afternoon at Minute Maid Park.
“The No. 1 thing is you can’t really strike him out, so that eliminates a lot of outs,” Greinke said. “And he can kind of hit anything.
“It’s weird. It’s not like he has some super strength where if you make a mistake he crushes it. It’s just no matter what you do, he’s probably going to bat close to .300. And if you leave it over the middle, it would probably be closer to .350.”
The latter is roughly where Altuve’s batting average will sit entering this week’s All-Star break. The four-time AllStar is batting an American League-best .343. His multi-hit games (35) nearly double his hitless ones (20). ‘He can hit anything’
Altuve’s 119 hits lead the majors. Forty have gone for extra bases. No style of pitcher or pattern of pitches has proved to be his kryptonite. Thursday’s two-strikeout performance wasonly his second of the season.
“You’ve got to use everything,” Tampa Bay Rays ace Chris Archer said. “You’ve got to go in, out, up, down. Every off-speed you have.”
Archer spoke a day after losing a wellpitched game to the Astros last month. In his first battle with Altuve the previous afternoon, Archer jumped ahead, no balls to two strikes, but needed eight more pitches to finish the at-bat. He mixed each of his three offerings — mid-90s fastball, changeup and electric power slider — eventually inducing a whiff on an elevated breaking ball.
Altuve is one of only four players with more walks (40) than strikeouts (36) this season. The others — Bryce Harper, David Ortiz and Ben Zobrist — have combined for 17 All-Star Game selections. Altuve’s next walk will mark a single-season career high. And the 162-game season is 88 games old.
“He’s the type of guy you’ve got to throw the whole arsenal at him at all times because if you fall into a pattern, he’s going to get a hit off you,” Archer said.
Waste pitches don’t really exist for a pitcher facing Altuve. Even though he has enhanced his plate discipline, he is one of the sport’s best bad-ball hitters. When he doesn’t make good contact and grounds pitches, his speed gives him a chance to beat out throws to first base.
“He hits baseballs that are balls,” said Boston RedSoxstar lefthander David Price, a five-time All-Star and a former Cy Young Award winner. “Not just normal balls. Not the quality-pitch balls, (but) the ball that’s going to bounce or the ball that’s at his neck or 6 inches inside or 6 inches off the plate. He gets barrels to all of those pitches.
“He’s kind of like a Vladimir Guerrero minus a little bit of the power. He can hit anything.” Power surge
Evolving as a hitter even after winning a batting title two seasons ago, Altuve has drastically decreased the volume of pitches outside the strike zone at which he swings. One byproduct of swinging at better pitches has been his increase in power, from a career-high 15 home runs last year to 14 in the first half this season.
The Astros coaching staff preached to Altuve to become more of an all-around run producer than just a player who racks up hits. He delivered to such an extent that manager A.J. Hinch dropped him from the leadoff spot to the two-hole in late May and then to third a month ago.
Although he won’t hit 40-plus homers in a season like the aforementioned Guerrero in his prime, Altuve has turned himself into a legitimate threat for 25 long balls and 90-plus RBIs.
On top of the 200-plus hits that have become the norm.
“Yeah,” McCullers said, “(it’s) great he’s on my team.”