The Cuban baseball player Yordan Álvarez started this Tuesday as one of the most serious candidates for the Triple Crown of Batting in Major League Baseball, with an average of .324, 33 home runs, and 75 runs batted in, which places him among the leaders of the American League in all three categories simultaneously.
On Monday, the batter 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 the 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 he is at the peak of his career.
The 2026 season of 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 of that month, won the Player of the Week award, and was later recognized as American League Player of the Month.
On July 10, he became the first batter in the American League to reach 30 home runs in 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 a million votes. It was his fourth appearance in the Midsummer Classic, following the 2022, 2023, and 2024 editions.
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 pursuit of the historic Astros record of 47, set by Jeff Bagwell in the year 2000.
Winning the Triple Crown in batting is one of the rarest achievements in modern baseball: since 1920, only 10 players have accomplished it on 12 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 and 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 leading candidate for the highest individual awards of the season, with a genuine chance to inscribe 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: