With two homers for the second straight night, Yordan Alvarez became the fastest Astros hitter to reach 20 in a season and his teammates were left amazed.
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Houston Astros’ Brice Matthews celebrates his single in the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Texas Rangers Wednesday, May 27, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press
Houston Astros’ Yordan Alvarez celebrates with the team after hitting a solo home run in the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Texas Rangers Wednesday, May 27, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press
Houston Astros’ Yordan Alvarez celebrates his solo home run in the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Texas Rangers Wednesday, May 27, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press
Texas Rangers center fielder Evan Carter is unable to reach a solo home run ball hit by Houston Astros’ Yordan Alvarez in the fourth inning of a baseball game Wednesday, May 27, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press
Houston Astros pitcher Mike Burrows throws to the Texas Rangers in the first inning of a baseball game Wednesday, May 27, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press
Texas Rangers first baseman Jake Burger (21) makes the out at first on an infield hit by Houston Astros Jeremy Peña during the third inning at Globe Life Field in Arlington, May 27, 2026.
Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News
Houston Astros batter Taylor Trammell (26) points to the dugout after hitting a lead off double against the Texas Rangers in the second inning at Globe Life Field in Arlington, May 27, 2026. Texas Rangers shortstop Ezequiel Duran was covering on the play.
Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News
Houston Astros shortstop Braden Shewmake (28) steps over Texas Rangers Josh Jung (6) who had to dive back to the base on a throw down during the first inning at Globe Life Field in Arlington, May 27, 2026.
Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News
Houston Astros relief pitcher Enyel de Los Santos (65) reacts after striking out Texas Rangers batter Evan Carter to end the game in the ninth inning at Globe Life Field in Arlington, May 27, 2026. The Astros won, 4-3.
Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News
Houston Astros designated hitter Yordan Alvarez (44) is congratulated on his eighth inning solo home run by teammate Taylor Trammell (26) at Globe Life Field in Arlington, May 27, 2026.
Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News
Houston Astros designated hitter Yordan Alvarez (44) is congratulated on his eighth inning solo home run by teammate Christian Walker (8) at Globe Life Field in Arlington, May 27, 2026.
Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News
ARLINGTON — For Jeremy Peña, it was the final swing that stood out most, the flourish on another game in which Yordan Alvarez wielded his presence like a wrecking ball and left his Houston Astros teammates — none of them quite numb to this — in awe.
Alvarez led off the top of the eighth inning Wednesday night in a tied game. The Texas Rangers deployed left-hander Tyler Alexander to face the lefty-hitting slugger. Alexander opened with three pitches outside the zone, two sinkers in and a sweeper away.
In a 3-0 count, Alexander threw another sweeper.
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“Like, who swings at a 3-0 slider,” Peña mused later, “and hits it 110 (mph) to the batter’s eye?”
The answer stood across the visiting clubhouse at Globe Life Field, a soft-spoken slugger who is carrying a depleted Astros lineup and offering a reminder following an injury-marred campaign of his standing as one of the sport’s most complete and dangerous hitters.
Alvarez swung at Alexander’s sweeper and sent it soaring 448 feet over the center-field wall, breaking a tie and baffling even the major-league hitters who see him every day. First baseman Christian Walker stood on deck as Alvarez unleashed the swing. Taylor Trammell waited in the hole.
“Left-on-left sweeper down and away — dotted down and away — and he pulls it in the air 110,” Walker said. “That’s hard to do. It’s hard to do. Like I said, I’m borderline speechless.”
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Said Trammell: “To see a pitch like that in a supposed matchup at-bat, and you do that, I was speechless. I don’t know if anybody has a video, but if you could have seen me and Walker out there, it was laughable. He said, ‘There’s no chance he just did that.’”
Two months into the season, Alvarez leads all qualified major-league hitters with a 1.085 OPS — nearly 80 points higher than his closest pursuer, Ben Rice, as of Wednesday night. He ranks sixth in batting average (.312), second in on-base percentage (.422) and first in slugging (.663).
Two home runs in a 4-3 Astros win over the Rangers left Alvarez with 20, tied with Munetaka Murakami for the AL lead and one behind major-league leader Kyle Schwarber. It was Alvarez’s second multi-homer game in as many nights, a career first. He has five in a three-game span at Texas.
“Apparently, I love playing here,” Alvarez said, through an interpreter. “I can see the ball really well here, so I’m having really good results out there.”
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It is breathing life into a scuffling offense. For much of May, the Astros have struggled to score, averaging 2.7 runs over their first 21 games this month. Alvarez mirrored that malaise. He roared to a 1.199 OPS by the end of April. He had a .698 OPS and three home runs in his first 21 games of May.
Last Saturday, he exited a game at Wrigley Field mid-at-bat with what the Astros deemed a back spasm. The next day, he received his first off day of the season after playing in Houston’s first 53 games. He’s 6-for-12 with five home runs in three games since.
“Tiredness comes into play,” Alvarez said Wednesday night, “and that reflects when I take my at-bats at home plate and that’s what happened.”
BATTERS
AVG
OBA
AB
R
H
2B
3B
HR
RBI
BB
SO
SB
CS
E
Team Totals
.246
.322
1916
253
472
89
3
74
242
191
456
20
10
20
Trammell
.371
.436
35
5
13
2
1
0
4
4
11
1
0
1
Alvarez
.312
.422
202
36
63
11
0
20
39
36
41
1
0
1
Allen
.302
.362
43
10
13
1
0
1
4
3
9
1
0
0
Correa
.279
.369
122
22
34
8
0
3
16
18
26
1
0
1
Loperfido
.276
.348
58
7
16
5
0
0
7
6
19
1
1
1
Shewmake
.273
.279
66
7
18
3
0
3
8
1
11
0
0
1
Vázquez
.257
.316
105
10
27
4
0
4
17
9
19
0
0
0
Walker
.255
.330
208
33
53
10
0
15
40
21
45
0
0
0
Altuve
.245
.326
163
27
40
10
0
4
12
19
35
1
2
2
Peña
.244
.302
78
11
19
4
0
1
5
4
13
2
0
2
Paredes
.239
.330
184
19
44
8
0
5
20
18
33
0
0
2
Diaz
.238
.255
101
7
24
5
0
2
14
3
16
0
1
0
Harris
.226
.286
31
4
7
0
1
0
4
2
6
2
0
0
Dezenzo
.220
.289
41
5
9
4
0
1
2
4
16
0
0
0
Matthews
.210
.267
138
14
29
4
1
4
14
11
47
2
3
1
Smith
.209
.301
182
24
38
7
0
5
18
21
58
7
1
4
Meyers
.197
.265
61
7
12
2
0
2
5
5
15
1
2
0
Cole
.157
.189
51
3
8
1
0
3
8
1
21
0
0
1
Johnson
.143
.294
14
1
2
0
0
0
0
2
3
0
0
0
Whitcomb
.118
.167
17
1
2
0
0
1
4
1
9
0
0
0
Salazar
.063
.211
16
0
1
0
0
0
1
2
3
0
0
0
___
PITCHERS
W
L
ERA
G
GS
SV
IP
H
R
ER
HR
BB
SO
Team Totals
25
32
5.12
57
57
15
499.1
462
294
284
73
273
469
Pearson
0
0
0.00
2
0
1
2
0
0
0
0
1
0
Santa
0
0
0.00
1
0
0
2
0
0
0
0
0
1
VanWey
0
0
0.00
2
0
0
2
1
0
0
0
0
3
Brown
1
0
0.84
2
2
0
10.2
5
1
1
0
6
17
Arrighetti
6
1
1.32
7
7
0
41
24
8
6
1
25
40
Teng
3
3
2.19
17
4
0
37
24
9
9
3
15
36
King
0
1
3.04
21
0
6
23.2
22
10
8
1
10
19
De Los Santos
0
1
3.57
21
0
4
22.2
19
10
9
1
4
21
Lambert
3
4
3.79
7
7
0
40.1
29
17
17
2
18
40
Okert
0
0
3.86
26
1
0
23.1
17
10
10
3
8
21
Blubaugh
2
2
4.81
22
0
0
33.2
26
18
18
5
21
24
Roa
0
1
5.19
7
0
0
8.2
10
5
5
1
7
6
Burrows
3
6
5.40
11
11
0
63.1
71
38
38
13
21
54
Bolton
0
1
5.40
8
3
1
20
21
12
12
3
14
22
Imai
2
2
6.17
6
6
0
23.1
17
16
16
4
18
23
McCullers
2
3
6.86
8
8
0
39.1
38
32
30
7
22
43
Abreu
2
2
6.88
19
0
3
17
15
14
13
4
20
21
Murray
0
0
7.15
7
0
0
11.1
16
9
9
0
7
5
Weiss
0
3
7.62
9
2
0
26
35
24
22
8
20
30
France
0
0
8.10
3
0
0
6.2
6
6
6
1
5
4
Sousa
0
0
8.10
5
0
0
3.1
3
3
3
0
5
4
Salazar
0
0
9.00
1
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
0
Alexander
1
1
9.33
4
2
0
18.1
21
19
19
4
8
14
Gordon
0
0
11.57
4
1
0
9.1
21
12
12
6
3
11
Javier
0
1
12.54
3
3
0
9.1
13
13
13
2
9
4
Muñoz
0
0
15.75
3
0
0
4
7
7
7
3
6
6
To suggest Alvarez alone is producing for the Astros would be disingenuous. Walker owns an .849 OPS. Trammell, reinstated from the injured list Tuesday, had two hits against Jacob deGrom on Wednesday with a run scored. That Trammell made his first career start in the cleanup spot, still, underscored the lineup’s tenuous state.
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Eleven days earlier, the Astros had hit four homers against deGrom in his start at Daikin Park. Alvarez and Walker each had one. Jose Altuve, now on the injured list with an oblique strain, and Zach Cole, optioned to Triple-A this week, accounted for the others.
DeGrom surrendered all four of those homers on his four-seam fastball. Facing Alvarez in the first inning Wednesday, deGrom threw six pitches, just two four-seamers. Behind 3-1, he back-doored two sliders to Alvarez that clipped the outside corner for a strikeout.
“I was joking with the guys in the dugout that it was kind of like he was throwing me PlayStation-style, just dotting the corners,” Alvarez said. “But then the second at-bat, I was able to adjust.”
In the fourth, deGrom threw a first-pitch slider to Alvarez, who fouled it away. Two changeups missed. Alvarez spoiled a 97.8 mph fastball on the corner to stay alive. DeGrom tried another slider, this one catching more of the plate. Alvarez hit it 428 feet over the center-field wall.
It was Alvarez’s third career home run against deGrom. Just five other hitters have as many in the majors against the right-hander. They met once more in the sixth. Alvarez whiffed at two curveballs down in the zone. In a 2-2 count, deGrom spun another. Alvarez lined it for a single at 104.4 mph off the bat.
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“He’s just so advanced in making in-game adjustments,” Peña said. “He doesn’t wait for the at-bat to be over to make adjustments, he makes adjustments pitch to pitch and that’s what makes him such a great hitter.”
The last at-bat impressed Peña most. Alexander fell behind 3-0. Before Wednesday, a left-handed pitcher had thrown a 3-0 pitch to a left-handed hitter 248 times in the majors this season, per Baseball Savant. Nine of those were classified as sliders. None of the nine had drawn a swing.
“The plan was to take a strike there,” Alvarez said. “But … I saw the ball was there and I said, calm down and stay through the middle.”
It was just the ninth time Alvarez has put a 3-0 pitch into play in his career. His swing untied a game and was his 17th regular-season home run at Globe Life Field, most by any visiting player since the stadium’s inception in 2020. For Walker, it was illustrative.
“The second homer is the perfect example of his controlled aggression, I think is the best way to kind of describe his whole approach,” Walker said. “He doesn’t swing a lot. He makes sure he knows what he’s looking for. And when he gets it, he does not miss it, which is also not an easy task.”
Alvarez is the fastest Astros player to reach 20 home runs in a season, doing so in the team’s 57th game. To imagine what its 25-32 record could be without him is alarming. He is the fifth Astros player to have consecutive multi-homer games, per MLB researcher Sarah Langs, and first since Altuve in 2023.
A two-out single by Peña brought Alvarez to the plate once more in the ninth Wednesday. The Rangers took no risk, waving him to first base. It had no bearing on the outcome. Alvarez’s damage was done.
“There is a level of intelligence and calm through his at-bats that I have never, ever seen in my career,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “This is a really, really good hitter.”