{"id":690591,"date":"2026-05-24T01:42:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T01:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/690591\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T01:42:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T01:42:16","slug":"astros-dh-alvarez-back-exits-win-will-miss-series-finale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/690591\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros DH Alvarez (back) exits win, will miss series finale"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO– Houston Astros<\/a> designated hitter Yordan Alvarez<\/a> left Saturday’s 3-0 victory<\/a> over the Chicago Cubs<\/a> in the middle of an at-bat in the sixth inning because of a back spasm and will miss the series finale as the Astros try for a sweep.<\/p>\n

Alvarez said through a translator he experienced tightness in his right scapula, or shoulder blade, earlier in the day and “didn’t give it time to go away.”<\/p>\n

“I was going through my routine before going to hit,” Alvarez said. “I was lifting some weights and felt that the scapula felt a little tight, and I couldn’t really raise my right arm a whole lot.”<\/p>\n

After fouling off a pitch from Colin Rea<\/a> and falling behind 0-2 in the count in the sixth, Alvarez appeared to be in discomfort. Manager Joe Espada sent Zach Dezenzo<\/a> to pinch hit, and Dezenzo struck out on the next pitch.<\/p>\n

“Espada came up to me and took me out of the game just to give it some rest and not make it worse,” Alvarez said. “So, I just followed his direction.”<\/p>\n

The three-time All-Star said Espada planned to give him Sunday off before the injury surfaced. Alvarez is batting .300 with 15 homers and 31 RBIs.<\/p>\n

“Once that at-bat got going, he took too much time in between pitches,” Espada said. “It was time to come out of the game.”<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO– Houston Astros designated hitter Yordan Alvarez left Saturday’s 3-0 victory over the Chicago Cubs in the middle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[337053,89248,64,63,5158,794,5163,591,44,85],"class_list":["post-690591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-337053","tag-alvarez-yordan","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-espn","tag-houston-astros","tag-mlb","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}