Another measure of Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez's great season: His success on 2-strike counts

In his first at-bat Monday night, Yordan Alvarez turned on a 2-2 inside fastball at 96.2 mph from Marlins right-hander Janson Junk and lined a single into right field. In his second, Alvarez sent an 0-2 slider from Junk an estimated 428 feet into the second deck in right-center field at Daikin Park. The single exited his bat at 114.2 mph, the home run at 113.8 mph.

Both swings upheld a notable element of the season being authored by Alvarez, who entered Tuesday leading the American League in all three Triple Crown categories. In the most disadvantageous counts, the Houston Astros slugger is proving harder to put away than ever. And he's doing damage in them at a rate unseen in years over his volume of at-bats.

Alvarez entered Tuesday with a .292/.358/.559 slash line in two-strike counts this season, equating to a .917 OPS. League slash line in two-strike counts was .168/.247/.263, for a .510 OPS. Just eight qualified hitters in the majors - including Alvarez - had an overall OPS higher than .917 regardless of the count.

Alvarez led the majors in hits (57) and home runs (15) in two-strike counts while having the 39th-most such plate appearances, per Baseball Savant. Among hitters with at least 50 such plate appearances, Alvarez ranked second in batting average, to Arizona's Gabriel Moreno; fourth in on-base percentage, after Gleyber Torres, Ryan Jeffers and Moreno; and first in slugging.

Since at least 2008, the highest slugging percentage in two-strike counts by a hitter with at least 50 such plate appearances was Mike Yastrzemski's .557 mark in the shortened 2020 season, per Baseball Savant. Alvarez awoke Tuesday on pace to surpass it. He was asked about the two-strike numbers Monday night.

"I just really go out there and focus on the plan that I have; I don't really change my approach," Alvarez said, through an interpreter, after the Astros' 8-5 win over Miami. "I just think about the next pitch and how can I execute (on) that pitch and I think the pitcher as well has to do their job."

Still, Alvarez's success in two-strike counts this season far exceeds any he produced before it. Alvarez had a career .194/.282/.345 slash line in such situations prior to this year, with his highest OPS a .696 mark in 2024. Per OptaSTATS, he entered Tuesday on pace to join Mike Piazza, Alex Rodriguez and Albert Belle as players to hit at least .290 with 15-plus homers in two-strike counts since pitch-tracking began in 1988.

Astros teammates and coaches laud Alvarez's intelligence at the plate and ability to adjust between at-bats or pitches. Yet his above response invites the question of whether anything has changed this year with how he formulates - or is putting into practice - the plan he carries to the batter's box to produce that jump in results.

"The best we can do is provide information on what we think the (put-away) pitches are, what we think that this pitcher is going to do against that specific hitter," said Dan Hennigan, the Astros' director of hitting and offensive coordinator. "The hard part for Yordan is they typically don't do their basic patterns and usages, so we have to sort of get a sense of what we think this catcher and this pitcher like to do."

Hennigan, noting that it's difficult to know exactly what pieces of data or information Alvarez ingests for a given matchup, said there are "absolutely times where we have conversations and he says, ‘I'm going into this at-bat looking for this specific pitch.'" At others, Hennigan said, he believes Alvarez hones in on location that may be less inclined to invite chase against a certain pitcher.

"I think you'll see him sometimes truly, like, statue right out of the hand because it's just not the area where he knows, ‘If I am going to go on this pitch, it has to start here,'" Hennigan said. "When it doesn't, he doesn't budge. And he's so diligent and so focused on making sure that he stays on that, I think that keeps more pitches in the zone, even with two strikes.

"So if you have this high-probability area paired with a really good swing - then you pair that with his ability to at least waste the fastest pitch and catch something out front on the slowest offering - you put yourself in a scenario where you can waste ones they typically get strikeouts on and connect on ones for power that most guys are typically getting groundouts or rollovers on because they're too far out front."

Alvarez is certainly not infallible with two strikes. Yet his 34.4% strikeout rate in such situations entering Tuesday was down from 41% in his career before this season, while he had homered in 7.7% of those at-bats, compared to 3.5% prior to this year.

"He's consistently asking really good questions, he's seeking information," said Hennigan, part of the Astros' three-man hitting staff with lead hitting coach Victor Rodriguez and assistant coach Anthony Iapoce. "We have a very specific routine for him before the game starts and he has sort of a setup where he can watch everything a pitcher does to a lefty while also getting his body ready.

"He may have already looked at a bunch of stuff on that pitcher and he'll say, ‘This is what I intend to do, what do you think of that? ' Or he's not asking at all and (it's), ‘This is exactly what I'm going to do today.' And other days, ‘I'm not sure what to do, what do you think? ' … If there's ever a time where he's unsure, we are ready for him. But there's plenty of times where we're just watching and admiring."

Entering Tuesday, Alvarez led qualified major-league hitters with a 1.083 OPS. His .324 average ranked second after Miami's Otto Lopez, his 33 home runs were tied with the Phillies' Kyle Schwarber for the major-league lead and his 75 RBIs were one behind MLB leader Jordan Walker of the Cardinals.

"What he's doing right now," Astros manager Joe Espada said Monday night, "it's in a different league."

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This article originally published at Another measure of Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez's great season: His success on 2-strike counts.