Healthy Altuve continues tear with cycle
BOSTON — Adam Duvall made a futile leap at Fenway Park’s centerfield wall for a baseball that caromed off the green façade several feet above him. Its ricochet left Jose Altuve license to run. Astros’ third-base coach Gary Pettis raised his hands as Altuve approached, executed an easy slide and patted the bag.
Altuve’s two-run triple in the sixth inning Monday flipped what had been a one-run Houston deficit. Two batters later, Yordan Alvarez’s three-run home run helped send the Astros to a 13-5 rout. The triple also left Altuve needing just a home run for the cycle. In the moment, that might have seemed secondary.
“I don’t even think a lot of guys realized it, actually,” third baseman Alex Bregman said. “When he went for third, I realized that he had single, double, triple. I really wasn’t thinking about it. I feel like everyone was kind of thinking about their own at-bats and stuff like that.”
In the eighth, Altuve actualized the implications. Kyle Barraclough, a righthander Altuve had faced twice already, remained in the game absorbing a barrage on Boston’s behalf. Altuve fouled away a cutter and watched a sinker below the zone. Barraclough tried a fastball at its top.
Altuve annihilated it. Barraclough averted his gaze, anticipating its flight. The drive carried 420 feet over the Green Monster and descended toward Lansdowne Street as Altuve broke into a jog having authored the first cycle by an Astros player in a decade.
“As soon as he hit it, a lot of guys knew,” Bregman said. “It was pretty cool.”
That did not include everyone, apparently. Alvarez, who also collected four of 18 hits Houston compiled on the night, said he learned of Altuve’s feat only later. From Altuve.
“He told me when we came out of the game that he had done it,” Alvarez said through an interpreter. “I think I just missed the triple. When he hit the triple, I was getting ready to go out there. And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s weird.’ But yeah, I just completely missed the triple there.”
Altuve’s cycle is the ninth in Astros history and the first since Brandon Barnes achieved one against the Mariners on July 19, 2013. Just three of those have occurred in road ballparks. Altuve accomplished his in a setting that has housed its share of history.
In the present, it reinforced the tear Altuve has been riding since returning from an oblique injury in late July. A fractured thumb cost the second baseman the first 43 games of this season. He compiled a slash line of .264/.371/.479 in the 32 games between his debut and injuring his oblique in the cage on July 4.
Altuve entered Tuesday night’s game batting .380 with an OPS of 1.039 and 31 runs scored in 30 games since returning to the lineup on July 26. Monday, Altuve scored four runs and drove in four.
“That’s how Seattle got started on their streak, when their leadoff man got hot,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said, referring to the Mariners’ Julio Rodríguez. “So, when your leadoff man gets hot, you put the pitcher in the stretch. And hopefully everybody else can respond from there.”
Houston entered Monday with the fifth-most runs scored in the majors in August, even as Alvarez has been slower to regain his form following an oblique injury. Altuve’s presence and production atop the lineup is a leading factor. His influence was illustrated before his night turned extraordinary.
Boston led 2-1 entering the third inning. Altuve, who had struck out in his first at-bat against Chris Sale, drove a first-pitch slider 395 feet to center field for a double. Alvarez singled two batters later to score him and tie the game. In the fifth, Altuve pulled a fastball from Sale through the left side of the Red Sox infield for a single. He took third on a single by Alvarez and scored when Sale bounced a wild pitch.
It gave Houston a 3-2 lead that starter Cristian Javier could not hold. Duvall crushed a two-run homer that gave Boston a one-run advantage in the fifth. Altuve’s triple an inning later erased it.
Altuve came up the seventh and skied a pop-out. As the first batter of that inning, he said: “The math says you’re going to get another chance.” Altuve strode to the plate again in the eighth well aware of the possibility a home run presented.
“Yeah, it’s kind of on your mind,” Altuve said. “But you don’t really want to change your whole approach just to try to do something. I was obviously feeling good tonight and tried to get my pitch and tried to hit it hard. And I hit it out, which is really good.”
Altuve was in the Astros’ lineup, batting second, in the game in which Barnes recorded his cycle for a 2013 team that lost 111 games. He is the rare link between those seasons and the organization’s more recent run of success. A milestone earlier this month, his 2,000th career hit, underscored Altuve’s longevity and importance to the turnaround.
Altuve became the fastest player in MLB history to total 2,000 hits, 200 home runs and 200 stolen bases on Aug. 19. Nine days later, he marked a career first that requires the condensing of those qualities into one game.
“Very tough,” Bregman said of the cycle. “You’ve got to have power and speed. And he’s got both. So I was actually surprised it was his first.”
Altuve is the fifth player in the majors this season to hit for the cycle. The four-hit game was the 37th of his career, most in Astros franchise history. His four runs scored also matched a career high.
“That’s a good night for the team and for me,” Altuve said. “It’s good to do it when you’re winning.”