Today we have an afternoon game following a late West Coast game. After two nights in a row where the Astros game didn’t start until 8:45 pm CT, I welcome the weekday afternoon game.
This will be the last time the Astros are in Pacific time until the last week of the season when the finish the 2026 regular season with 2 games in Seattle, followed by 4 games in Sacramento.
Yordan Alvarez, you’ve heard ad nauseum, has a shot to win the triple crown this year.
Right now, Yordan leads the majors with a .322 BA. Otto Lopez of Miami is the next closest in MLB at .318. In the AL, Chandler Simpson of Tampa Bay is 2nd with a .307 average. Yordan is tied with Junior Caminero, Kyle Schwarber and Matt Olson for the MLB HR lead at 35. His 87 RBI leads the AL over Dillon Dingler’s 80, and he is behind only Washington’s CJ Abrams MLB leading 91 RBI.
Yordan is already in AL triple crown position and could conceivably even attain an MLB triple crown, where he doesn’t just lead the AL in BA, HR and RBI but all of MLB in those 3 categories.
That’s been done before, but if Yordan does win a Triple Crown, he will become the first player to ever do it primarily from the 2-hole in the lineup. Over 90% of his plate appearances have come from the second position in the lineup.
Every other Triple Crown winner has batted in a traditional RBI position: 3rd or 4th (except Jimme Foxx, who had a little less than half of his plate appearances from the 5th position.)
| Triple Crown Winner | Year | League | Batting Order Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roger Horsnby | 1922 | NL | 3rd/4th |
| Roger Hornsby | 1925 | NL | 3rd |
| Chuck Klein | 1933 | NL | 3rd |
| Jimmie Foxx | 1933 | AL | 4th/5th |
| Lou Gehrig | 1934 | AL | 4th |
| Joe Medwick | 1937 | NL | 4th |
| Ted Williams | 1942 | AL | 3rd/4th |
| Ted Williams | 1947 | AL | 3rd/4th |
| Mickey Mantle | 1956 | AL | 3rd |
| Frank Robinson | 1966 | AL | 3rd |
| Carl Yastrzemski | 1967 | AL | 3rd |
| Miguel Cabrera | 2012 | AL | 3rd |
Yordan is such a great batter, I can understand why the Astros would want him in the second spot instead of the traditional 3-hole where your best hitter with both power and contact generally goes. He gets up to bat one spot sooner. Sometimes, you know if you can just get the lineup to turn over, you can get to Yordan right after the leadoff and you have a real shot to make something happen.
However, it does cut down on RBI opportunities. That said, Houston has a better 9-hole than most. The Astros 9 hitters have a .299 OBP, which ranks 5th in the AL for teams’ 9-spots. But that’s still well under the .320 OBP the Astros have as a whole team, and the .316 AL average OBP.
Across MLB over the past 5 years, 3-hole hitters see 10.7% more plate appearances with runners in scoring position than 2-hole hitters.
| Year | 2-hole PA with RISP | 3-hole PA with RISP |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 4773 | 5424 |
| 2023 | 4944 | 5479 |
| 2024 | 5216 | 5431 |
| 2025 | 4962 | 5713 |
| 2026 | 3717 | 4115 |
The Triple Crown is definitely within Yordan’s reach. The team could probably make it a little easier for him by batting him 3rd instead of 2nd, but at the same time, why fix what isn’t broken?
Just let 2-Hole Yordan eat.
Astros @ Giants Game Information and Gamethread Details
The pitchers for today’s game were both listed as TBD last night.
It is expected that both the Astros and Giants will go with openers, followed by a pitcher slated to pitch the bulk of the game’s innings. For the Astros, Bryan King will serve as opener, and per Brian McTaggart, Tatsuya Imai should be available to come in for bulk relief following King.
Imai last pitched 9 days ago against Toronto, his first relief appearance after being removed from the rotation on the heels of his 3rd start where he failed to get out of the first inning. Against Toronto, he logged 3 innings of strong relief, with no hits, no walks, and 5 strikeouts in 9 batters.
No specific opener or bulk relief candidate has been announced for San Francisco, but based on timing, I would expect Adrian Houser, 33 right-handed veteran, to fill the bulk relief role, as he did it on Aug 7, which would put him on standard 4-day rest. Houser was a starter to start the season, but was moved to the pen in mid-June. In his last outing, he pitched innings 2 through 6, and came away with the win, allowing 6 hits, 1 run against the Tigers, striking out 4 and walking 1.
Update: upon release of the lineup, Houser is slated to start the game outright.
This is the 3rd game in 4 days where the opposing starter was still officially “TBD” even the night before the game. The Astros didn’t do too well in the first 2 (Sunday and yesterday). Hopefully, that trend changes today.
The Astros will try to win the rubber game of the series, and salvage of 3-3 split on this West Coast road trip. Despite yesterday night’s loss, the Astros position in the AL West remains unchanged; both Seattle and Texas lost as well. Houston remains 0.5 games ahead of Texas for the division lead.
The game will be broadcast at 2:45 p.m. CT on SCHN with radio coverage on KBME 790 AM.
This post will be updated with starting lineup as they are made available.
We hope you will join us and the rest of the Launch Angle community for the game! The turnout has been amazing on the TLA Discord Server for the game threads.
Join us again for today’s game. Just join the Discord server using this link: https://launch-angle.com/discord .
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Feature photo from @astros on X, Source Link.
Here’s hoping that # 44 finds his mojo again soon. All that 3x 👑 hype may dissipate soon if he can’t resume his torrid early pace. Best in health big fella, for the stretch run . . .