Astros, Altuve Have Failed in Key Scenarios This Season

During Saturday’s game, Yordan Alvarez came up to bat in the third inning with a runner on third thanks to Jeremy Pena’s leadoff triple with no outs. Yordan grounded out to the second baseman but Pena hesitated and chose to stay at third base. Isaac Paredes would get Pena in with a one-out single making the Astros 1-for-2 in these situations.

Altuve’s Struggles

In the next game, Jose Altuve came up with one out and the bases loaded looking to increase the Astros’ 1-0 lead. After a pitching change, Altuve fanned wildly on an outside pitch after getting down in the count, 0-2. Altuve is among the worst in baseball at getting the runner in from third with less than two outs. Among the 173 hitters who’ve come to the plate 23 times in these situations this season, Altuve’s conversion rate of 30.4% is fifth worst in baseball.

Altuve hasn’t always struggled in these scenarios. His career conversion rate is 56.7%, better than the average of 50.6% across the league in his 16 seasons. Last season, he was 18-for-32 (56.3%) at getting the runner from third in with less than two outs, a very respectable number. In his first seven seasons which includes his MVP year, he converted the runner into runs 64.8% of the time (125-for-193)

Astros Failing As A Team

The Astros, as a team, are third worst in baseball at getting the runner in from third with less than two outs, only the Royals and the Reds are worse. The Astros score the run 47.0% of the time with a league average in 2026 of 51.2%. It doesn’t seem that far off the average, but when these scenarios come up 350 times in a season you could be scoring 14 less runs than an average team over the course of a season. The Texas Rangers, the team the Astros are chasing, on the other hand, have a 54.0% conversion rate, the second highest in the American League.

These situations will probably come up at least 10 more times over the course of the last six games and the AL West race, if the Astros’ trend continues, they will be ill suited to score the runner from third with less than two outs. And if the season comes down to one game in the standings, the Astros could be looking back on these scenarios to explain why their season didn’t turn out as they hoped.