Yordan Alvarez is going into the final weekend of the season with a chance to win the American League Triple Crown. He leads the league in batting average, sits tied for the home run lead, and is second in RBIs.
The last player to win a Triple Crown was Miguel Cabrera in 2012. Before that, you have to go back to 1967. This does not happen.
Two Categories Are Close Enough To Flip
The batting average lead has been the most secure of the three. Alvarez has led the AL in average for essentially the entire season, and a three-game weekend is not usually enough to erase that kind of edge.
Home runs and RBIs are the problem. Being tied for the home run lead with three games to go means one swing from a competitor ends it. Being second in RBIs means Alvarez needs both production of his own and the guy ahead of him to stall.
Junior Caminero has been the home run threat all year, and the RBI race has been tight enough that a single big game from anyone in the top three changes the standings.
Alvarez Has Been the Best Hitter in the League
Whether he wins the Triple Crown or misses it by one home run, the season stands on its own. Leading a league in average while also leading or nearly leading in home runs is the profile of a hitter with no exploitable weakness. Pitchers have spent the year deciding whether to walk him or take their chances, and neither option has worked.
No Astros player has ever led the majors in home runs, though the franchise has produced batting champions and RBI leaders. Alvarez is chasing history that his own organization has never touched.
The Team Context Is Absurd
Houston is 79-80 and in a dead heat with Texas for the AL West title. Think about what that means. The best hitter in the American League is having a historic season for a team that is a game under .500 with three to play.
That is not a knock on Alvarez, it is an indictment of everything around him. A lineup with a Triple Crown candidate in the middle of it should not be scraping for a division title at 79-80. The pitching and the supporting cast failed him.
What It Means for MVP
The MVP conversation gets complicated when a candidate’s team is barely above water, and voters have historically punished great players on bad teams. Alvarez’s case is that his numbers are so dominant across all three traditional categories that team record becomes hard to weigh against them.
If he wins the Triple Crown, the MVP is difficult to deny. If he misses by one in a category, the argument opens back up, which is an absurd way to evaluate a season this good.
Three Games Against Oakland
Houston closes at Oakland with the division on the line, which means Alvarez will be in the lineup swinging for real stakes rather than stat padding in a meaningless series. That is the best possible setup for this.
Win the division and the Triple Crown in the same weekend, and 2026 becomes a season nobody in Houston forgets.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.