'The king is back': Alvarez returns with a bang to lead Astros to series win

CHICAGO -- Yordan Alvarez entered the Astros’ clubhouse just after 11 a.m. on Thursday, two hours before the team’s finale against the White Sox. Houston’s hard-hitting slugger had missed the first two games of the series to tend to a personal matter, and his absence had been noticeable both on and off the field.

As Alvarez made his way to his locker, one of his teammates could be heard greeting him by shouting “the king is back.” Just a couple hours later, he showed why his return prompted such a response.

In the first inning, a mere three hours after he arrived in Chicago, Alvarez scorched a 439-foot solo shot to right-center. Six frames later, he cracked a game-tying single to help fuel Houston’s come-from-behind 5-3 victory at Guaranteed Rate Field.

“I’m not surprised,” manager Joe Espada said of Alvarez’s instant impact. “I’ve been seeing it for a while. Yordan, how big he is, the difference he makes in our lineup when he’s around, he’s a game-changing player. He made a statement right off the bat.”

Alvarez’s heroics came just two days after Espada announced the Cuban slugger had left the team to address a family matter. Espada confirmed Thursday morning that everything was OK. Meanwhile, with minimal time to chip off any rust, Alvarez took to the batting cages to warm up before the game.

He needed just 10 swings, then got back to work as if he’d never left.

On just the second pitch he’d seen since Sunday, Alvarez received a low-and-inside cutter from Chris Flexen and promptly swatted it 109.6 mph over the Astros’ bullpen. It was his fifth career hit off Flexen, three of which have gone over the wall.

“He is everything [as] advertised and then some,” said starter Spencer Arrighetti, who struck out two and allowed three earned runs in 4 1/3 innings. “First inning, he hits a big homer like three hours after landing here. I think that kind of sums it up.

“It’s just incredible. He’s such a difference maker, it just seems to elevate the lineup. It elevates our competitive nature just because of how competitive he is.”

It was exactly the kind of jolt Houston’s offense had been searching for both in Alvarez’s absence, as well as that of the injured Kyle Tucker.

Despite having split the series coming into Thursday, the Astros had been scuffling to score throughout the set. They were blanked Tuesday night and a pair of César Salazar RBI singles served as the bulk of the offense in Wednesday’s win.

For a moment on Thursday, it appeared Alvarez’s solo blast would represent the entirety of Houston’s offense. But he soon proved that jetlag was hardly going to prevent him from coming through with another big hit.

With the Astros trailing 3-1 in the seventh, Jose Altuve knocked in a one-out RBI single. Alvarez came up to the plate with runners on the corners, sending the first pitch he saw up the middle to tie the game at 3.

“It means a lot, obviously,” Alvarez said of his heroics through interpreter Jenloy Herrera. “At one point, when we were losing, I was like, ‘We need to win this game so this trip up here wasn’t in vain.’”

The Astros helped to make sure that wasn’t the case, continuing the seventh-inning surge by scoring the go-ahead run off a throwing error by Chicago third baseman Lenyn Sosa. Jeremy Peña’s bases-loaded walk provided enough insurance to complete the comeback, with Josh Hader notching his 11th save to secure Houston's second straight series victory.

That the win was powered by someone who wasn’t even within state borders when the rest of the team arrived may come as a surprise, but Alvarez’s outburst makes more sense when you consider the time of year in which it occurred.

The 26-year-old entered Thursday with a career 1.111 OPS in June, his highest in any month. After hitting just two homers during a quiet May (by his standards), Alvarez has now tripled that total with six blasts in 15 games this month.

It’s the type of elite performance that even a few days away from the plate couldn’t slow down.

“I feel like every single time that I miss a couple games,” Alvarez said, “I come back and always hit a homer.”

He maintained that trend on Thursday, putting up the kind of performance that was indeed worthy of a hero’s welcome.