Tag: Yordan Alvarez

Yordan Álvarez made some astonishing MLB history with his double off Ben Joyce’s 103.9 mph fastball

Yordan is built different.

There’s a simple reason for why we’ve seen such an emphasis on velocity with MLB pitchers in recent years:

It’s extremely difficult to hit triple-digit velocity.

But Astros slugger Yordan Álvarez is just that good, and he made some Statcast history in the process on Saturday.

Ben Joyce — who wowed fans and scouts with his 105-plus mph heat at Tennessee — was tasked with facing Álvarez in the Angels’ game against Houston. Álvarez took the first pitch at 102 mph for a ball, and that was all he needed to time up the flame-throwing righty.

On the second pitch, Álvarez got the barrel through the zone and slapped a double down the left-field line off a 103.9 mph fastball (with 106.3 mph exit velocity).

And in doing so, he became the first MLB player in the Statcast era to get an extra-base hit off a pitch exceeding 103 mph in the regular season. The only other time an extra-base hit happened off that kind of heat was in the postseason when Carlos Ruiz hit a double off Aroldis Chapman in 2010.

That’s just more proof as to how good MLB players are at baseball. It shouldn’t even be possible to catch up with that velocity.

Duke baseball alum Joey Loperfido called up by Houston Astros; set to make MLB debut

Duke baseball alum Joey Loperfido set to make MLB debut for the Houston Astros.

The Houston Astros have played horrific baseball to start the 2024 season, and now, with their backs against the wall and in desperate need of a spark, the Astros are looking to a former Duke baseball alum.

Former Blue Devils Joey Loperfido got called up to make his MLB debut on Tuesday when the Astros host the AL’s best team, the Cleveland Guardians.

Loperfido leads all minor league baseball with 13 home runs, including a solo bomb he smashed during his final game with the Triple-A Sugar Land Space Cowboys on Sunday. He finished the game 2-for-3, raising his OPS to 1.106 after 101 at-bats during a remarkable April.

Loperfido may not be a seasoned first baseman, but he’s had enough reps there, playing in seven games in Triple-A. His time in Durham saw him as an outfielder, so he also offers the Astros versatility defensively.

 

Houston drafted Loperfido out of Duke in the seventh round of the 2021 draft. At Duke, Loperfido started all 170 games he appeared in during his time with the Blue Devils. In his four years at Duke, Loperfido posted a .317 career batting average, collecting 201 hits, 37 doubles, nine triples, 18 home runs, and tallying 96 RBI. He drew 85 walks and held a slugging percentage of .488, adding an on-base percentage of .419. In the field, Loperfido posted a career fielding percentage of .992

Last season, he won the Astros’ Minor League Player of the Year award after slashing .278/.370/.510 with 55 extra-base hits across three levels of affiliated ball. The Athletic’s Keith Law ranked him as Houston’s sixth-best prospect before the season started.

The Astros are still led by the same core, which has helped them win two World Series: Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Tucker, and Alex Bregman. However, the rest of the lineup needs a spark.

Already ten games below .500 and six games back in the American League West, the Astros can’t rely on Jose Abreu much longer as he’s become one of the worst offensive players in the league to start the season.

The game starts Tuesday at 7:10 CT / 8:10 ET at Minute Maid Park and can be seen on MLB.TV.

Lip-readers think Chris Bassitt had a hilarious NSFW message for Yordan Alvarez after getting shelled repeatedly

Yordan Alvarez is giving Chris Bassitt a hard time.

Pitching to Yordan Alvarez is no fun for anybody, but especially not for Toronto Blue Jays righty Chris Bassitt.

Even before Wednesday’s game against the Houston Astros, his career numbers against the slugger were sub-optimal, albeit on a small sample size. After the game, the sample size increased but the numbers got worse.

Alvarez went 4-for-5 in the game with two home runs and three RBI, and three of those hits came off Bassitt, including the third-inning home run and an RBI double in the fourth inning. Once the fourth ended, Bassitt had a few words for Alvarez.

Lip-readers think he said “you’re [expletive] killing me, man.”

If that is what he said, he would be right. Alvarez is now 8-for-18 with five home runs in his career against Bassitt.

Texans coach DeMeco Ryans seeks to add to Astros’ ‘championship atmosphere’

Houston Texans coach DeMeco Ryans threw out the first pitch for the Astros May 14, and wants his team to add to the Stros’ “championship atmosphere.”

Houston Texans first-year head coach DeMeco Ryans was at Minute Maid Park on Monday, and it was not to recruit Houston Astros left fielder/designated hitter Yordan Alvarez to play on defense, even though Alvarez is a prototypical edge rusher with a muscular 6-foot-5-inch frame.

Ryans was in attendance to throw out the ceremonial first pitch before the Astros was set to take on the Chicago Cubs in the first game of the three-game series.

“I grew up a big baseball fan, so to have an opportunity to do this, throw out the first pitch, is a huge honor,” said Ryans to the media before his pitch. “Hopefully, they will give me an opportunity to warm up.”

It was a break in the action from his normal day-to-day activities of preparing the Texans for the upcoming 2023 NFL season that will begin against the Baltimore Ravens in September. Ryans completed overseeing his first rookie minicamp as he finally got an opportunity to get an up close and personal look at quarterback C.J. Stroud and edge rusher Will Anderson Jr. who were taken No. 2 and No. 3 overall in the 2023 NFL draft.

Ryans spent the first five years of his NFL career in Houston after being selected in the second round in 2006, so being hired as the head coach of the franchise that allowed him to play football on the highest level is a blessing for him, and the fans show their appreciation every time, they interact with him.

“It’s like coming home,” Ryans said about returning to Houston. “It has been fun. It has been a warm welcome from the city. It has been a lot of energy. The fans are fired up, I am fired up, and our team is fired up. We are excited to get started, and we are very thankful for all the support we get throughout the city.”

If football would not have worked for Ryans, baseball was his backup option, having played catcher growing up and watching Bo Jackson, who is from his hometown of Bessemer, Alabama. Jackson was a two-star professional athlete who played running back for the Oakland Raiders and center field for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Although Ryans finished his playing career in Philadelphia in 2015 and spent five years with the San Francisco 49ers, he always kept up with the Astros’ progress and watched them become two-time World Series Champions.

“I kept up with it for a while, and this Astros run has been amazing,” said Ryans. “They’re always there in the end; they’re champions. They have a championship atmosphere, and it’s what we want to bring from the football side. For the Texans, that is the type of atmosphere we want to bring.”

Astros manager Dusty Baker offered some advice to the first-year head coach during his pregame press conference.

“Just be yourself and don’t try to be somebody else, but take from what you have learned from others, and after you do that, do things your way and keep in mind the advice you got along the way,” Baker said.

Ryans smiled when he was told the advice offered by a future Hall of Fame manager in Baker.

“It is everything to have that support from Dusty; it means a lot,” Ryans said as he embraced the words from Baker. “I will make sure I definitely follow that advice because he has done it at a very high level for a very long time. I have looked up to him his entire career for as long as I have been watching baseball. I am proud of what he has done.”

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Top 6 best bets to win 2022 World Series MVP

Top 6 players to bet for World Series MVP.

The World Series begins Friday with the Houston Astros hosting the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 1.

Both teams enter the series on impressive runs, increasing the level of intrigue for what might happen. The betting favorite to win, Houston swept its way through the postseason to the World Series. Barely outdone, the Phillies made the playoffs as a Wild Card before sweeping that round, and losing just a single game in the NLDS and NLCS each.

With this unlikely World Series about to commence, it’s time to look at my top six MVP candidates and their odds to win. Astros dominate the list, because Houston is favored to win, but a couple Phillies made the list too.

The walk-off home run remains the coolest ending in all of sports

Nothing beats a walk-off homer.

This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning.

Playoff baseball is back in our lives in a big way and on Tuesday we were reminded of one, very important thing – the walk-off home run remains the coolest ending in all of sports.

And it’s not even close.

The Astros’ Yordan Álvarez provided the heroics in Game 1 of their ALDS series with the Mariners as his 3-run bomb to right field gave Houston an 8-7 win and sent the home crowd into absolute hysterics.

Ending a game by tattooing a ball completely out of the field of play has to be an incredible feeling. I’d probably float around the bases. Heck, I might moonwalk around the bases. The energy you must feel while the whole stadium loses its collective mind must be better than anything you could ever experience in the real world.

Then at the end of it all you have your whole team waiting around home plate, ready to pounce on you and pour drinks on you and slap you on the top of your head a million times.

It’s magical.

Let’s look at some other sports and their possible best endings:

Basketball has a game-winning buzzer-beater, which is close to the walk-off home run but doesn’t top it. If you’re at home you get all the feels of a building going insane. If you’re on the road you get to feel the sadness of the crowd. Both are pretty sweet, but they don’t match hitting a ball out of the field.

NFL has mostly game-winning field goals, which are pretty boring. We’ve seen some big game-winning TDs in overtimes but those are few and far between and aren’t nearly as cool as a walk-off homer.

The NHL has overtime goals which are exciting but don’t even come close to a walk-off homer.

Golf has birdie putts on the 18th hole which are pretty sweet but don’t really make you lose your mind.

There are lots of other sports with cool endings, too, but let’s be real – they don’t touch the walk-off homer, either.

Nothing beats a walk-off homer. Astros fans got to experience one yesterday and I’m jealous of them.

Quick hits: NBA watchability rankings… Josh Donaldson’s embarrassing mishap… MLB oven mitts… And more. 

– Charles Curtis ranks all 30 NBA teams from least to most watchable.

– Josh Donaldson thought he hit a home run… and then got thrown out at first on an embarrassing play in the Yankees’ win over the Guardians.

– Here’s why you see so many MLB players wear oven mitt gloves while on base.

– Cole Huff has his fantasy football studs, duds, and sleepers for Week 6.

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Yordan Álvarez had a cold-blooded reaction to his walk-off 3-run shot that sent Astros fans into a frenzy

Imagine being THIS calm in such a historic moment.

One of the biggest reasons the Astros seemingly make deep runs every October is that they have players who don’t shy away from the moment. When it’s time for a big hit or catch, someone usually comes through and plays hero for Houston. This was precisely the scenario for Yordan Álvarez against the Mariners (-1.5) on Tuesday.

With the Astros down 7-5 in the bottom of the ninth inning, they needed someone to finish the job on their last out against Robbie Ray. Given the ensuing result for Álvarez, it’s almost as if they couldn’t have picked a better person to get that coveted (eventual) 8-7 final score.

And when you see Álvarez’s initial reaction to a three-run, walk-off shot to win Game 1 — compared to an absolutely raucous Astros crowd anyway — it’s certainly a man who has been there and done that:

Oh my. What a blast to right field, and what a shot of an entire stadium going crazy while Álvarez simply stares his home run down and calmly trots around the bases.

Let’s see another angle of that crowd for electric posterity:

Álvarez’s shot made some history, too. It’s not only just the second walk-off homer for a team down to its final out in playoff baseball history, it’s also the first for a squad down multiple runs:

Kirk Gibson is quite the company to share. Not to be overlooked: The homer capped a stellar three-hit, five-RBI performance for Álvarez.

If this is how the Astros will play all postseason — getting timely plays whenever they need them — then they might be an even tougher out than anyone thought.

Nadie se dio cuenta de que Yordan Alvarez tuvo cuatro fouls en su turno al bat

Yordan Alvarez, bateador de los Houston Astros, ha estado atorada en un bache últimamente. El bateador designado lleva seis hits en sus últimas 25 veces al bat y únicamente un homerun. Cuando a alguien con un swing tan poderoso le pasa esto, rara …

Yordan Alvarez, bateador de los Houston Astros, ha estado atorada en un bache últimamente.

El bateador designado lleva seis hits en sus últimas 25 veces al bat y únicamente un homerun. Cuando a alguien con un swing tan poderoso le pasa esto, rara vez quiere abandonar la caja de bateo. El deseo de salir con un batazo es demasiado fuerte.

Aún así, eso no explica cómo diablos fue posible que Alvarez tuviera cuatro strikes en un turno al bat este miércoles, pero el video no miente.

En la tercera entrada, con el abridor de los Boston Red Sox pichando desde el montículo, Alvarez tomó una curva y pareció strike, después tuvo foul en el siguiente lanzamiento y vio cómo otra curva llegó a la zona de strike. Pero Alvarez no abandonó la caja de bateo, el umpire no le dijo nada y Hill siguió pichando.

Traducción: Yordan Alvarez tuvo cuatro strikes al bat y ¿y simplemente nadie le dijo?

 

De acuerdo, el beisbol ha tenido una temporada muy larga y puede llegar a ser muy mundano, especialmente para pitchers veteranos como Hill, quienes ya están muy acomodados en sus rutinas. ¿Pero cómo fue posible que ni siquiera se dio cuenta que había hecho un ponche? Generalmente, los pitchers de la MLB saben cuando han ponchado a alguien. Hill ni se inmutó.

La presentación de MLB’s Gameday claramente mostraba esa jugada con una K, incluso cuando seguía en su turno al bat. Hill terminó con dos ponches oficiales.

 

vía MLB.com

 

No fue que en este juego faltaran strikes. Jose Urquidy, abridor de Houston, tuvo 10 strikes para empatar el récord más alto de su carrera y no conectó ningún hit contra Boston en ninguna de las seis entradas de una victoria de 6-1.

Sin embargo, no pueden culpar a Alvarez por haberse quedado en home, lo que quiere decir que la culpa la tienen Hill, el mánager de Boston Alex Cora y el umpire de home Jim Wolf. En cualquier caso, probablemente no sea la mejor señal para la MLB cuando un partido es tan aburrido que nadie se da cuenta cuando ya se hizo uno de los 27 outs.

 

Artículo traducido por Ana Lucía Toledo

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Yordan Alvarez astonishingly got away with a four-strike at-bat without anyone noticing

The dog days of baseball season have officially arrived

Houston Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez has been in a bit of slump lately.

The designated hitter has six hits in his last 25 at-bats with just one home run. When that happens to someone with such a powerful swing, they hardly want to leave the batter’s box. The urge to swing your way out of it is just too strong.

That still doesn’t explain how Earth it’s possible for Alvarez to see four strikes in one plate appearance on Wednesday. And yet the video doesn’t lie.

With Boston Red Sox starter Rich Hill on the bump in the third inning, Alvarez took a curveball for a strike looking, fouled off the next pitch and watched another curveball sail into the zone for another strike. But Alvarez didn’t leave the box, the ump didn’t call him out and Hill just kept on pitching.

Granted, baseball has a very long season and it can get plenty mundane—especially for veteran pitchers like Hill who are so locked into their routines. But how is it possible he didn’t even notice he got a strikeout? Usually MLB pitchers know when they’ve punched someone out. Hill doesn’t even flinch.

Anyone who took the under on Hill’s 3.5 strikeout prop Wednesday was certainly pumped about the development, which MLB’s Gameday presentation clearly showed as a K even as the at-bat continued. Hill finished with two official punchouts.

via MLB.com

It wasn’t like this game was devoid of strikes, either. Houston starter Jose Urquidy struck out 10 to tie his career-high while no-hitting Boston through six innings in a 6-1 victory.

You can’t fault Alvarez for staying at the plate, however, which means the blame lies solely with Hill, Boston manager Alex Cora and home plate umpire Jim Wolf. In any case, it’s probably not a great sign for MLB when the game is so dull no one recognizes when one of the 27 outs is recorded.

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Hottest batters entering World Series between Braves and Astros

The smart money is on these players to come through.

The World Series has finally arrived, bringing with it countless ways to make money betting on the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros, from which team wins Game 1 on Tuesday to how long the series will go.

For those looking to cash in on player props in this matchup, it’s important to know which players have been recently performing at a high level, as no sport is more streaky than baseball. Below is a list of which players have been the hottest throughout the playoffs, or even just the league championship series, prior to entering the World Series.

All good runs have an ending, so it’s always possible these players have let downs — especially depending on matchups — and others emerge as World Series heroes, but this should provide a nice starting point going into Game 1, with odds provided by Tipico Sportsbook.