The Cuban baseball player Yordan Álvarez started this Tuesday as one of the most serious contenders for the Triple Crown in Major League Baseball, with an average of .324, 33 home runs, and 75 runs batted in, placing him among the leaders in the American League across all three categories simultaneously.
On Monday, the slugger from the Houston Astros added another chapter to his historic season by hitting two home runs, marking the 27th game of his career with two or more home runs.
That figure places him in third place historically among Cuban players for the most multi-home run games in the Major Leagues, only behind José Canseco (36) and Rafael Palmeiro (34), and he achieves this while being in the prime of his career.
The 2026 season for the slugger born in Las Tunas has been extraordinary from day one. In April, he led all of MLB with 10 home runs by the close of the 20th, won the Player of the Week award, and was later recognized as Player of the Month in the American League.
On July 10, he became the first batter in the American League to reach 30 home runs for the season, and he arrived at the All-Star Game on July 14 in Philadelphia as the most voted player in his league, with over one million votes.
It was his fourth participation in the Mid-Summer Classic, following the editions of 2022, 2023, and 2024.
At the current rate of 0.37 home runs per game, projections indicate that Álvarez could finish the season with around 54 home runs, which would put him in sight of the Astros' historical record of 47, set by Jeff Bagwell in 2000.
Winning the Triple Crown in batting is one of the rarest achievements in modern baseball: since 1920, only ten players have accomplished it on twelve occasions. The last to achieve this was Miguel Cabrera, with the Detroit Tigers in 2012, becoming the first Latino to do so and the first in 45 years since Carl Yastrzemski.
Álvarez has already surpassed his personal best for home runs this season, which was 37, a record he set in 2022, the same year he won the American League MVP and was a key player in Houston's World Series championship.
His combination of power and consistency keeps him as a top contender for the highest individual awards of the season, with a real chance to etch his name on a list that very few hitters have been able to join throughout the history of Major League Baseball.
Related videos:
Filed under: