ARLINGTON, Texas — He stands 5-foot-6 but boasts the shoulders and swing of someone twice the size, sports a wide smile most onlookers want to wipe away and an aw shucks sensibility only some are allowed to see. He is a franchise’s heart and soul and the catalyst of a dynasty that refuses to die.
Jose Altuve will not allow it. He is the Houston Astros’ lifeblood and a living legend, even if his exploits are far from over. Facing him is an October rite of passage few opponents ever want to relive.
“If he’s not a first-ballot Hall of Famer, I don’t know what one is,” teammate Mauricio Dubón said. “I expected for him to do something great. And he doesn’t disappoint.”
Anticipation greets his every at-bat. Altuve somehow keeps exceeding it. He is immune to rancor or revulsion, be it from fans, fellow players or a loud combination of both. Few players thrive on the chaotic tension surrounding the Astros across the past four seasons. Altuve seems to invite it.
“He never gets too high, never gets too low. I think it’s something that makes him so great — if he’s not playing well, he doesn’t get down. If he’s playing great, he doesn’t get too high,” third baseman Alex Bregman said. “He stays even-keeled throughout. I think everyone in here strives to be like that. Only the special players are like that.”
Special seems insufficient. Altuve is something so much more. His heroics leave so many without speech, even those who have come to expect it. He can arrive at the Astros’ darkest hour only to deliver franchise-defining moments.
“Number one, he wants to be up there. Number two, he’s got a high concentration level, because that’s what it takes in big moments like that. Concentration, desire and relaxation all encompassed into one. Everybody can’t do all three of those things,” said Astros manager Dusty Baker, a man with more than 50 years in Major League Baseball.
“This dude is one of the baddest dudes I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some greats.”
As dusk turned to dark in north Texas, Altuve authored another iconic moment in a career full of them. Three outs from a 3-2 series deficit, Altuve launched a go-ahead, three-run home run off Rangers closer José Leclerc to complete Houston’s chaotic 5-4 win in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series.
Not since 2005 had a player on a trailing team hit a ninth-inning, go-ahead home run in the League Championship Series. Houston is still scarred from the last one, when Albert Pujols bludgeoned a Brad Lidge slider atop the train tracks at Minute Maid Park and propelled the St. Louis Cardinals to a comeback win in Game 5.
Eighteen years later, Altuve authored a counter to that catastrophic memory. His 26 postseason home runs trail only Manny Ramirez for the most in major-league history. Passing him feels inevitable, perhaps even this season. One more win will secure the American League pennant and provide at least four World Series games for Altuve to try.
Whether Friday’s is the most Herculean home run of Altuve’s postseason career is a legitimate question, but this is the same player who won a pennant with a walk-off home run in 2019. Altuve is the only man in postseason history to hit three go-ahead home runs in the ninth inning or later.
His latest silenced an intrastate rival and saved Houston from facing elimination Sunday against one of the game’s premier postseason pitchers in Nathan Eovaldi. An ace faltered and benches cleared before Altuve’s 382-foot blast.
“That guy is special. Time after time,” infielder Grae Kessinger said. “We were just talking about it, you feel like you knew it was going to happen when he came up. He just has that kind of effect and the way he carries himself, it’s just awesome to see.”
Kessinger stood on first base when Altuve connected with Leclerc’s changeup. The rookie took 45 major-league plate appearances in the regular season and had not appeared in a game since Oct. 1. The shortstop leaped to snare Marcus Semien’s 94.6 mph line drive during the ninth inning, too, saving at least a single on a missile Statcast assigned a .770 expected batting average.
Kessinger’s presence personified the preposterousness of this moment. Bench coach Joe Espada, managing in place of Baker, summoned him to pinch run after Jon Singleton worked a six-pitch walk in the ninth inning.
Singleton had not seen a major-league pitch since Oct. 1. Yainer Diaz had not struck a hit since Sept. 24, but kept his hands inside on a Leclerc sinker that tailed toward his waist. He sent it 61 feet through the six-hole to start the ninth inning with a pinch hit single in place of Jeremy Peña, the reigning World Series MVP who had not been pinch hit for at all this October. They are footnotes to Altuve’s finish, perhaps answers to trivia questions in Houston bars forever, but Altuve determined to make them more.
“I know everybody is talking about the homer, but if you go and see Díaz’s base hit and then Singleton walked, especially when he hasn’t played in a lot of days, and coming from the bench facing probably one of the best closers right now in the playoffs,” Altuve said. “So I think the key was these two guys and to be able to score all those runs.”
A man who should savor the adulation he so often refuses. Altuve is more interested in praising teammates than ever talking about himself. Before Friday’s game, his 101st in his postseason career, Altuve did not answer a question about what moment stands out as his favorite. Instead, he chose José Abreu’s three-run home run a night earlier in Game 4.
“I know that wasn’t the question,” Altuve said with a sheepish grin, “but I gave you my answer.”
Altuve began Friday’s game 0-for-4, too. He chose to bunt with two on, two out and Houston clinging to a one-run lead in the fifth inning. The baseball traveled 12 feet and did not leave the dirt around home plate. Catcher Jonah Heim handled it with ease, executing the game’s most confusing out.
Ten minutes later, Nathaniel Lowe launched Justin Verlander’s yanked four-seam fastball into the left field seats to tie the game at one. Adolis García added a three-run homer against him in the sixth to give Texas a two-run lead.
García attacked a first-pitch fastball. Verlander craned his neck, kicked his front leg and watched it soar somewhere into the left field seats. Garcia stalked his dugout down the first-base line, spiked his bat and supplied the seminal highlight for however long he remains a Ranger.
During García’s next at-bat, Houston reliever Bryan Abreu plunked him with a 98.3 mph fastball on the first pitch he threw. Benches cleared after García confronted catcher Martín Maldonado and a melee nearly ensued. At the time, Texas’ win probability stood at 96 percent, according to Baseball Savant.
“That helped us out a little bit (to), I think, focus a little bit more,” Dubón said of the fracas. “It’s crazy. The emotions were high. Everyone knew what was going on. It’s baseball. It’s fun baseball. It set a different fire, I think, inside everybody.”
Added Maldonado: “The fight woke us up a little bit.”
García, Abreu and Baker were all ejected after the six-man umpiring crew deemed Abreu’s pitch intentional. Abreu and Maldonado both said afterward it was not. Ryan Pressly entered, stranded both base runners he inherited and stewed inside the clubhouse between innings. He and Verlander discussed how to attack some of Texas’ upcoming hitters — if he’d even get a chance to face them.
“Then, I sat down and I see the ball leave the field and, go figure, it’s Jose hitting,” Pressly said.
Pressly said he “kind of” expected Altuve to hit a home run. Bregman outright said he did.
“We all kind of have that inkling,” said Singleton, who played with Altuve in 2014. “That’s definitely out there in the universe. We’re just glad to put ourselves in a position to have him up.”
Anticipating something so abnormal should be absurd, but Altuve continues to defy such convention while an entire sport watches.
“He loves it,” Maldonado said. “He wants to be in the moment. He’s going to be a Hall of Famer.”
(Photo: Andrew Dieb / USA Today)
