Jeremy Peña Powers Astros Past Royals With Two Homers

SEO Title: Peña and Alvarez Break Out as Astros Beat Royals 4-2

SEO Description: Jeremy Peña hit two home runs and Yordan Alvarez added his 39th as Houston ended a three-game skid, with Hunter Brown striking out 10 and Josh Hader setting a club save record.

Houston’s two biggest bats showed up early Tuesday, and the Astros finally had the kind of night they had been waiting on for much of August and September. Jeremy Peña launched homers in each of his first two trips, Yordan Alvarez drove a two-run shot in the fifth, and the Astros held off Kansas City, 4-2, at Daikin Park.

Peña and Alvarez supply every Houston run

Hours before first pitch, Peña and Alvarez were already on the field for extra batting practice. Both had been buried in extended slumps, and Houston’s lineup had felt the absence of their usual production.

The early work delivered an immediate return. Peña jumped on Michael Wacha’s opening pitch and sent it over the left-field wall. He went deep to left again in the third, then singled in the fifth and came home when Alvarez hammered his 39th homer of the season to right field.

That was the full Houston scoring ledger. Peña and Alvarez accounted for all four RBIs, while nobody else in the Astros lineup recorded a hit.

Alvarez, who rarely takes on-field batting practice, chose to do so Tuesday in order to track the ball in the Daikin Park setting. He and Peña worked through hitting thoughts together. Alvarez later said Peña had finished the session saying he did not feel right at the plate, only to homer in his first two at-bats. Alvarez joked that he would gladly take that same kind of discomfort.

A needed answer from two slumping stars

Peña’s slide had stretched roughly six weeks. Since Aug. 3, he had hit .170/.220/.298 with four homers over 35 games, dropping his season average from .320 to .268. Tuesday’s pair of blasts were his first home runs of September.

Peña said he tries to treat each day as its own assignment. The Astros had a job Tuesday, he said: win the game, move on, eat dinner and return ready for the next one.

Alvarez entered the night with a .242/.380/.383 line and three homers in 35 games since Aug. 3. The slowdown had weakened both his pursuit of the American League Triple Crown and his Most Valuable Player candidacy, but his fifth-inning drive gave Houston a 4-1 cushion and offered a reminder of the middle-order force he can be.

Manager Joe Espada said great hitters can drift from their approach and begin chasing results, but the productive response is to return to a simpler plan: stay compact, be direct through the zone and use the middle of the field. He was encouraged that both players put in the work and saw it translate under the lights.

Espada also cracked that the entire roster might report for early batting practice Wednesday after watching the results Peña and Alvarez produced.

Brown misses bats, Hader makes history

Hunter Brown carried the starting load for Houston, striking out 10 Royals over five innings. He yielded one run on two hits, walked three and handed the game to the bullpen with the Astros ahead.

Kansas City’s other run came in the sixth, when Vinnie Pasquantino homered against Bennett Sousa. The Houston relief corps otherwise closed the door, and Josh Hader finished the job for his 26th straight save to open a season without a blown opportunity, a franchise record.

The win stopped a three-game Houston losing streak and moved the Astros to 76-75. With 11 games remaining, they retained a one-game edge over the Rangers in the American League West. Houston also owns the tiebreaker over Texas.

For one night, the Astros did not need a deep lineup card to find offense. They needed Peña and Alvarez to look like themselves again. After an early afternoon of work and an evening of loud contact, that was enough.