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The stellar Cuban player Yordan Álvarez hit his 11th home run of the season on Wednesday afternoon against the Cleveland Guardians and became the leader in both offensive categories in MLB with 26 runs batted in, solidifying what appears to be the best start to a season for a Cuban player in Major League history.
The journalist Francys Romero summed it up accurately on Facebook: "Yordan Álvarez is still in MVP mode. This afternoon he reached 11 home runs and 26 RBIs, leading both categories in the MLB season. It was his sixth home run against breaking pitch."
The home run today was precisely the sixth that the player from Tunas has hit against breaking pitches so far in 2026, showcasing an ability to adjust and read the pitching that places him in a category of his own.
The start of Álvarez surpasses any debut by a Cuban in Major League history, leaving behind the records of Rafael Palmeiro, who hit eight home runs in 19 games in 2000, and Adolis García, with seven in the same number of games in 2023.
His advanced metrics are equally elite: he leads the league in weighted expected on-base average (.596), is second in expected slugging (.953), and is third in expected batting average (.412), with an average exit velocity of 97.2 miles per hour.
At a pace of approximately 0.37 home runs per game, projections place him at 54 home runs by the end of the season, which would surpass the historical record of 47 set by the Astros, established by Jeff Bagwell in 2000, as well as his own personal best of 37 achieved in 2022.
This performance is even more valuable when considering that the 2025 season was a painful pause for the designated hitter born in Las Tunas: a fracture in the metacarpal of his right hand and an ankle sprain limited him to just 48 games, with nine home runs and an average of .273.
The return in 2026 has been explosive since day one. On April 7, he won the American League Player of the Week award after batting .471 with three home runs and eight RBIs. On Tuesday against Cleveland, he went 2-for-5 with a double and three RBIs, extending his hitting streak to eight consecutive games.
On April 20, he also achieved the , with a career OPS of .971 and 177 home runs accumulated since his debut in June 2019.
The manager Joe Espada has chosen to primarily use him as a designated hitter to protect him from further injuries, a decision that has yielded results so far.
The contrast with the collective performance is striking: the Astros have a poor record of 9-16 this season, well below the franchise's expectations, which makes the individual performance of the player from Tuner even more remarkable.
At the pace he's going, 2026 looks set to be the best sporting year of Yordan Álvarez's career, who at 28 years old seems to have found an even more dominant version of himself.
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