The Astros enter the last 3 games with a single accomplishment in their sights: a ticket to October with the AL West division title. Tied with the Rangers at 79-80, the division race comes down to who can do better in their last 3 games: The Astros face the A’s in Sacramento; the Rangers face the Twins in Minnesota.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t individual accomplishments on the line though. Yordan Alvarez has been chasing a triple crown, and ranks 1st, 1st and 2nd in batting average, home runs, and RBI respectively.
He’s also looking to put the finishing touches on his case to be the third MVP in Astros history after Jeff Bagwell in 1994 and Jose Altuve in 2017.
Let’s look at where he stands in the triple crown and MVP chase.
Batting Title
Yordan enters today with a .315 batting average. This is likely going to hold for the AL batting title, and possibly the MLB batting title overall. Luis Arraez of the Phillies is second in the majors with .310. The next closest in the AL is the Rays’ Chandler Simpson, 7 points behind at .308.
Simpson can still mathematically catch up. If he were to go 6 for 12 in the next 3 games, he’d get to .312. If Yordan goes 0 for 12 the next 3 games, he’d drop to .308, but if he Yordan even manages 2 hits in the next 3 games, he should easily fend off even a Simpson battgin .500 the rest of the way.
Arraez suffered an ankle injury last night, and is questionable to play the rest of the season. Although, with the Phillies still trying to secure their postsseason spot, I’m sure Arraez will try everything he can to get back out there again.
Should Yordan hang on, this would give the Astros their 5th batting champion in the last 13 years. Altuve has 3 to his name (2014, 2016, 2017) and Yuli Gurriel has one (2021)
Home Run Crown
The Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong and the Phillies’ Kyle Schwarber each have 45 home runs in the NL, so it’s unlikely Yordan would top the majors as he has 41. (Although anything is possible in ridiculously hitter-friendly Sutter Health Park.)
The AL Home Run crown is a wide open race. Entering today it’s a 4 way tie between Yordan, Baltimore’s Pete Alonso, Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero and New York’s Ben Rice, all with 41 dingers.
RBI Leader
This category likely prevents Yordan from getting the triple crown. Yordan’s 102 RBI is probably too far back of Pete Alonso’s 110 RBI to really threaten overtaking him with only 3 games left. Alonso has been on a tear lately, but it makes you wonder if Yordan wouldn’t have a higher RBI total if he had batted in the 3-hole instead of the 2-hole all year. I wrote about this earlier in the year: no triple crown winner ever primarily batted in the 2 hole: they were all 3 and 4-hole hitters (except Jimmie Foxx, who spent half his triple crown season in the 5 spot.) The 2 hole sees more plate appearances total during the course of the season, but the 3 hole sees close to 10% more plate appearances with runners in scoring position than the 2 hole, and that might be enough to account for the difference between Yordan’s and Alonso’s RBI totals.
This was a peculiar year to contend for a triple crown. The thresholds to win the batting title, home run crown and RBI lead are all very low compared to previous 162 game seasons. Yordan’s .315 is good enough to win a batting title in 2026, but the last year .315 would have gotten you the AL batting title is 1968, when Carl Yastrzemski won it with a .301. The last time 41 home runs would have been good enough for the AL home run lead was 12 years ago when Nelson Cruz topped the AL with 40. The same goes for the RBI lead: 2014 was the last time such a low RBI total like Alonso’ 110 would have topped the AL. Mike Trout had 111 that year. It’s conceivable Alonso goes without an RBI in the Orioles’ last 3 games. If so, his 110 RBI total would be the lowest AL leading total since George Foster’s 109 in 1976.
MVP
Has Yordan done enough to win MVP? It has to be a lot with his bat, since he played very little defense this season.
Yordan has dominated the league offensively:
| Stat | Value | AL Rank |
|---|---|---|
| AVG | .315 | 1 |
| OBP | .432 | 1 |
| SLG | .600 | 1 |
| OPS | 1.032 | 1 |
| HR | 41 | 1 (tie) |
| 2B | 33 | 3 (tie) |
| XBH | 75 | 1 |
| RBI | 102 | 2 |
| Runs | 101 | 4 |
| BB | 108 | 1 |
| IBB | 33 | 1 |
He leads in AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS, BB, IBB, HR, XBH, and is top 4 in RBI, 2B and Runs. That’s an MVP.
If he finished with the triple crown, I’d say the MVP were a lock. But the fact that he’ll finsih without the triple crown opens the door for “Well, but…” voters to look at other candidates like Junior Caminero, Bobby Witt, Jr, and Kevin McGonigle.
There’s never been a designated hitter who has won MVP except for Shohei Ohtani, and he only got that in his historic 50-50 season. Witt, McGonigle and Caminero all play defense. Witt and McGonigle do it at a high level. Caminero… not so much by Fangraph’s advanced metrics, nor even by standard metrics: Caminero leads the league with 20 errors. Caminero is still out there on the field every defensive half-inning though, which is something I’m sure voters will consider, and he’s been the best player on the best team in the league, while Witt and McGonigle are going to be sitting at home in October.
So it could possibly come down to whether the Astros can close out this division title, because if the Astros are playing in October, it’s because Yordan Alvarez showed up in 2026 when so many others on the team did not.
3 games left. Any combination of Astros wins and Rangers losses that add up to 3 will do, and probably secure an MVP for Yordan. But I doubt it will be unanimous.
Should we care? No. As long as he gets it, we’ll celebrate. Just as we should celebrate a division title as long the Astros get it, no matter how poor their record is.
Hunter Brown vs. Jacob Lopez
Hunter Brown starts for the Astros for the final time in the 2026 regular season. Considering the ballpark, Brown is probably the best pitcher to send to the mound for the Astros, as he has the lowest flyball rate of any of the Astros pitchers (30.0%) and fly balls turn into home runs at Sutter Health Park.
Brown will finish the season with a pretty decent stat line. He comes into today with a 6-3 record over 19 starts, a 3.26 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, a 10.6 K/9 (a career high) and a 4.5 BB/9 (also a career high).
His overall stat line belies a disappointing season for Brown. Not just due to the time he missed with injury, but start after start where he pitched decently, but just not what the Astros expect out of him from an ace, or what he expects from himself. Brown pitched just 102 innings in his 19 starts, an average of 5.37 innings per start. That’s just not enough from an ace. You want more innings from your rotation anchor so that he’s not just helping you win the games he starts, but helping you win the games he’s not pitching in, because he gave the bullpen a break and made them fresher. The Astros bullpen has pitched the most innings of any Astros bullpen in franchise history, and Brown is one of the many contributing factors.
His last start against the Braves is a good example. He did not allow any runs and struck out 10 , while only walking 2, but he was only able to 5 innings. That left 4 innings for the pen to cover, who lost the game and squandered Brown’s scoreless start. Yes, he pitched well, but just not long enough for an ace. If he has even gone just 6 innings instead of 5, that would have obviated the need to send out Bryan King to cover an inning, who ultimately took the loss.
His biggest start of the season comes tonight, and on the heels of 3 consecutive games where the pen has had to cover more than 6 innings, both quality and length are needed, especially if Sunday’s Game 162 also projects to be a bullpen game and is consequential.
28-year old southpaw Jacob Lopez starts for the Athletics. Lopez is 6-5 on the year through 23 starts in 26 games, with a 5.68 ERA and 1.53 WHIP, with a 8.3 K/9 and 4.3 BB/9.
This will be Lopez’ 3rd start against the Astros this year. While he did not receive a decision in either, the Athletics ended up winning both. On April 5, he went 4.1 innings and allowed 3 runs on 3 hits in Sacramento, including a home run, striking out 6, but walking 5. More recently on August 22, in Houston, he pitched 6 innings, allowed just 1 run, on 3 hits, striking out 9 and walking only 1.
He doesn’t throw hard, but also doesn’t get hit hard. His 5.68 ERA is deceiving, his xERA is markedly lower at 3.65. That’s been the case, though, throughout his career, his results end up worse than his pitching; his Pitching+ (factoring Location+ and Stuff+) comes in at a neutral 100.
Astros @ Athletics Game Information and Gamethread Details
The game will be broadcast at 8:40 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 .
For more detailed instructions, please see the Guide to the Launch Angle.
If you’ve participated in game threads on other Astros sites in the past, you will probably see a lot of familiar names. Chat, lurk, do whatever! (But please say “hi”, so we know you’re not a bot.)
Feature photo from @astros on X, Source Link.
I was listening to MLB Network a couple of days ago as they talked about Yordan’s MVP chances. A couple of guys said it would depend on whether the Astros win the division. (Personally I have never given that much weight for MVP purposes.) Harold Reynolds (notoriously pro-Mariners) said he didn’t think Yordan should win the MVP over Caminero regardless of whether he gets in the playoffs or not. His rationale is that Yordan plays in one of the worst divisions in history and Caminero plays in the AL’s best division. (Boo! to his opinion.)
Yeah, I’ve never agreed that MVP honors should be tied to how well the team did or if they were winners or losers.
Prime Mike Trout was amazing, but the Angels never came close to being a winning team. But I wouldn’t argue that 2015 Mike Trout shouldn’t get the MVP because he was only 10 WAR good and not the 25 WAR good that would have been necessary to get the Angels to October. Although that’s basically what happened.
This year, even though Witt and McGonigle have more WAR than Yordan, I think it’s going to be a race between Yordan and Junior and I don’t disagree with that. But Yordan has dominated offense across the board and Junior’s defense… I guess it goes on the CV but more for attendance than performance.
I ageee I think it should go to Yordan regardless, but I can see people changing their minds if the Astros don’t make it to the postseason. And like you said, even that might not be enough for some people.