Yordan Alvarez keeps pushing his way into rare air, and now his name sits beside Babe Ruth’s in a stat that says plenty about the kind of hitter he’s become.
Alvarez is only the second player ever to hit .300 or better with at least 200 home runs in his first 3,400 plate appearances. Ruth was the only one to do it before him, reaching that mark in 1923 during his 10th season in the big leagues.
That kind of production has piled up quickly for Alvarez since his Astros career began in 2019. He owns a .301 average in Houston and already has a Rookie of the Year Award on his résumé. He is also just two games shy of 800 for his career, with 206 home runs to his name.
Through 800 games, Alvarez is tied with Harmon Killebrew for seventh all-time in home runs. His batting average at that point would trail only Willie Mays among players with 200 homers in 800 games, with Alvarez at .316 behind Mays’ .316 mark. Babe Ruth had 198 homers through 800 games and was batting .336.
The numbers inside Astros history are just as striking. Among players with at least 1,500 plate appearances, Alvarez owns the second-best OPS in franchise history, behind only Moises Alou’s .988 over four seasons in Houston.
Alvarez’s career OPS stands at .977, ahead of Lance Berkman’s .959 and Jeff Bagwell’s .948. His .396 on-base percentage ranks fourth in Astros history, behind Berkman, Bagwell and Alou, and that figure keeps climbing as he continues to draw walks at a high rate and pick up intentional walks at an MLB-leading pace this season.
Those intentional walks could soon become another Astros record. Alvarez has 24 this season and is positioned to finish as the club’s single-season leader in the category. He needs four more to pass Jeff Bagwell’s 27 from 1997.
This season has also been one of Alvarez’s best from an overall production standpoint. He’s carrying a 1.064 OPS with a 197 OPS+, which puts him second in Astros history in that category behind Bagwell’s 1.201 OPS and 213 OPS+ from his MVP season in 1994.
One record that will take more work is the Astros’ home run mark. Alvarez is 11 shy of tying Bagwell’s 47, set in the first year in the new ballpark. His own single-season high is 37, leaving him just one behind his current total of 36.
At 29, Alvarez is in the age range where plenty of hitters are at their best, and he’s showing exactly why Astros fans are so locked in on him. If this pace holds, he won’t just keep climbing the franchise record book - he’ll keep turning in feats that haven’t been seen since Babe Ruth.
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Ronel Blanco's Astros Future Suddenly Feels Far Less Certain
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For Blanco, the assignment is less a reset than a test of whether he can get back to the version of himself the Astros believed in before the injury interrupted his season. The raw stuff and command both need sharpening in Sugar Land, and the organization will be watching to see if he can clean up the areas that have made his big-league future look less secure than it did only a short time ago. [Read more 🡒]