HOUSTON — There is perhaps no greater mark of respect as a batsman than to be compared to great Angels superstar Mike Trout. That was the level of recognition A’s manager Mark Kotsay bestowed upon Astros hitter Yordan Alvarez shortly after Alvarez hit a crucial home run in the eighth inning on Saturday to beat his team.
Alvarez smashed a 3-1 shifter from A’s left-hander Richard Lovelady and sent it 392 feet up the upper deck in right field at Minute Maid Park, where he hit a home run — his tenth goal of the season for the team — to defeat the Putting the Astros to flight for a sixth straight win, 3-2.
“He’s one of the guys in the lineup that you can’t beat,” Kotsay said. “It’s a 3-1 slider, which actually wasn’t a bad pitch. From my perspective, it looked like Jordan sat on the slider and hooked it into right field. He’s a special player. I definitely put it in the trout category.”
Alvarez also hit a run with a sacrificial flight in the first inning and had 41 RBIs in the 39 games he played this season. Astros manager Dusty Baker said he now assumes Alvarez will always come out on top.
The stats back that expectation, as Alvarez tied with the Mets’ Pete Alonso on Saturday and hit six high-leverage homers this season.
“The fans expect it, and when you get it, it’s like expecting the superstars in the NBA to take the last shot and everyone knows it and they sink it,” Baker said. “Boy, that was a big win for us. Hunter Brown was really good and our bullpen was good. We scored just enough points to win.”
Brown, the Astros’ rookie starter, hit nine batters in six innings, a career best, and allowed two runs and five hits with no walks. He hit 99 mph with his fastball in the first inning and threw 51 percent of his 97 pitch effort. He batted four of the first five batters he faced and equaled a career-high eight strikeouts in the fourth inning.
“I just go out and compete,” Brown said. “You can’t really control the results that way. If you execute your pitches, and that’s all I think if I do, I’ll consistently get pretty good results.”
With a win in nine of their last 10 games, the Astros have a season high of seven games over .500 (26-19) and remain hot on the heels of first-seeded Rangers (28-17) in the AL West. Houston has a plus-18 running difference in those 10 games, led by a bullpen who posted a 1.64 ERA with five saves from five chances during that span.
“Initially our bullpen gave up a lot because I don’t think our guys were ready for that, mostly because half of our bullpen went to the bullpen [World Baseball Classic]’ Baker said. “These guys weren’t ready to be themselves. Now these guys are getting in shape, their arms are getting used to the workload. The key is in the starting pitch, as that limits the workload of your already stellar bullpen.”
On Saturday it was Ryne Stanek, Héctor Neris and Ryan Pressly who relieved Brown with three scoreless innings. The Astros made a point of keeping their bullpen intact after last year’s great 2022 season, and it was the one aspect of their game that was the most dependable. Both the offensive player and the starting player had injuries, but the bullpen remains elite.
“I think a lot of guys got a bit unlucky at the beginning and when the season starts it will even out,” Pressly said. “We’re starting to throw the ball really well and as long as we keep doing that and give our offense a chance, we’re going to put up some good plays.”
The Houston rotation, which is without injured starters Lance McCullers Jr., Jose Urquidy and Luis Garcia, has been the beneficiary of the bullpen work. Just ask Brown, who didn’t take the win but dropped his season ERA to 3.38 in nine starts. The Astros are 6-3 on his starts.
“We have boys versus boys back there,” he said of the bullpen. “They have no qualms about passing the ball. There’s a lot of people out there who can come in and do the work, and that’s what they did. It was really good.”