“Y” I’m Rooting For A Triple Crown

Forgive me Houstonians, I’ve just never been all that much into the Astros.  My only experiences with their venues have not directly involved them–my one trip to the Astrodome was for a rodeo and my one trip to its retractable room successor now working on its third name as Daikon Park was for an All-Star Game.  And while I can gloat over surviving the 1986 NLCS their 2017 world’s championship run that took out both the Yankees and the Dodgers in emotional decisive seventh games while developing new ways to use trash can lids as communication devices still sits in my craw.

But I am very much invested in the 2026 version that is inexplicably sitting on top of the American League West–and actually in line for a home seed in the Wild Card Round–at this writing despite losing more games than they’ve won.  As A(I)P reported earlier this morning:

Yordan Alvarez resumed his Triple Crown push with a home run and three RBIs as the Houston Astros beat the Seattle Mariners 7-0 on Tuesday night to pull even with Texas atop the AL West. Houston snapped a three-game skid and tied the Rangers at 78-79 following their 6-3 loss to the New York Mets at home. Both teams have five games remaining, and the Astros hold the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Alvarez hit a two-run drive to right field in the eighth inning to tie Junior Caminero of the Tampa Bay Rays for the American League lead with 41 homers. Alvarez is first in batting average at .314 and he has 102 RBIs, six behind Baltimore Orioles slugger Pete Alonso for most in the AL.

Alvarez’ team is decidedly flawed, filled with injury-riddled, aging and underperforming pieces.  Indeed, his 2025 season could easily have been defined the same way.  He played in just 48 games and delivered a career low in batting average despite a late-season power surge that at least kept the ‘Stros in the race while manager Joe Espada was struggling with a sophomore jinx after leading them to the division title in his debut outing–delivering on the daunting task of succeeded two-time World Champion Dusty Baker.

But after last night’s timely breakout I’m as surprisingly giddy as any real ten-gallon hat wearing fan might be for both Alvarez’ and the Astros’ chances to make history.  And it brings me back to my childhood for two much more memorable pennant chases and my first ever experienced with the Triple Crown.

The first summer I followed the game was the year that four American League teams went down to the last week of the season in contention for the pennant.  This was even before there was divisional play, and the Yankees were well out of contention.  I quickly learned exactly how atypical it was for the Boston Red Sox–the team that was inspired by that year’s chart-topper from the Broadway hit MAN OF LA MANCHA, THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM– to be playing meaningful baseball in September.  It had been more than two decades since their last pennant and they were being lifted up by the heroics of another “Y” player, the Long Island native gone New England rogue named Carl Yastrzemski.  The de facto heir apparent to Ted Williams was finally playing significant games and was battling to lead the league in home runs, RBIs and batting average–which even to a neophyte youth like me sounded impressive.

But what I also learned as I rapidly got addicted was that the previous year the same feat had been accomplished by Frank Robinson.  And in his first season with the Baltimore Orioles after an inexplicable trade from the Reds his achievements lifted the O’s to their first-ever World’s Championship–via a sweep of the defending World Champion Dodgers.  So for Yastrzemski the bar had been set as high as possible.  The pennant race came down to the last weekend–so tight that NBC actually added bonus coverage of Sunday games to its usual Saturday game of the week.  The Red Sox did emerge victorious and Yaz did indeed win his Triple Crown but both had asterisks–the Sawx lost in seven to the far superior St. Louis Cardinals and Yastrzemski actually tied for the home run title with the Twins’ Harmon Killebrew.

Only in hindsight during an ensuing  45-year draught that the Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera was able to break in 2012 did the level of true appreciation outside New England for Yastrzemski grow to the mythic proportions it reached.  The fact that Alvarez has his own potential to tie with the likes of Caminero or Alonso makes his quest all the more intriguing.  And the race his team is in to qualify for a post-season with potentially the worst record of any in MLB history evokes memories of a much more memorable September for this Mets fan.

The 1973 Mets compressed the 1967 Red Sox’s feat of going from near-worst to first from season to season within a month and change.  They were in last place in the National League East as late as August 30th but in a weakened NL East field were just 6 1/2 games out of first at that point.  And then, spurred on the optimism of Tug McGraw’s “Ya Gotta Believe!”, the timely return from injuries of several key players, the still potent starting pitching of Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman and the rapidly rising Jon Matlack they somehow emerged on October 1st at a rainy Wrigley Field as division champs with a mere 82 wins, losing just 79 because the potential second game of a makeup doubleheader scheduled for that day after the end of the regular season became moot.  Only the 2005 Padres, who played a full schedule and also wound up with 82 wins, won a division title with a lower winning percentage.

Short of an unbeaten sprint by either the ‘Stros or the Rangers neither one will top 82 wins and the smart money is on one of them becoming the first sub-.500 post-season qualifier ever in a regular length MLB season.  That said, the Rangers know full well all it takes is to punch a ticket no matter how marginally you do so.  Their 2023 version won just 83 from a sixth-seed position en route to their own first World’s Championship–and at the expense of the 84-win Arizona Diamondbacks in a Series that featured the lowest combined win total of its combantants in history.

Recency bias aside, I’m still pulling for Yordan, the first “Y” player of consequence to emerge in autumn for Houston since Yu Darvish shut down the Dodgers for that 2017 title.   Who resembles Carl Yastrzemski in so many ways.  And if he’s aware of what MLB.com’s Shanthi Sepe-Chepuru authored this past Saturday he’s probably keenly aware of that connection:

A Yastrzemski hasn’t suited up for the Boston Red Sox since 1983. As for the last time a Yastrzemski sent the Red Sox to the postseason? Try today.