Yordan Alvarez blasts walk-off homer on July 4 for second time in career as Astros snap Rays' 9-game win streak
With one swing, Yordan Alvarez ended the Tampa Bay Rays’ nine-game win streak and started the party in Houston. The super-slugging Astros designated hitter teed off on a 93-mph four-seam fastball that was served to him like an Independence Day hot dog. It was right down the plate, and the 6-foot-4, 237-pound lefty ate it up.
In fact, the four-time All-Star annihilated it, tattooing the pitch from Tampa Bay right-hander Casey Legumina and sending it 424 feet to dead center.
For the second time in his career, the Cuban-born Alvarez had launched a walk-off home run on July 4, this one a two-run shot that gifted the Astros a 10-8 victory and punctuated his power-charged, two-homer, six-RBI outing.
Four years ago, he accomplished the feat with a 444-foot solo shot to right-center field, vaulting Houston over the Kansas City Royals in a 2022 matchup.
Yordan Alvarez is no stranger to bringing the fireworks ...
— MLB (@MLB) July 5, 2026
This was his SECOND career walk-off home run on the #4thOfJuly! 🎆 pic.twitter.com/dbduY0j0Ci
The Rays (52-34) had been riding the longest win streak of any AL team this season. Houston (44-47), now just 2.5 games out of first place in the AL West, halted that momentum, in large part thanks to Alvarez.
The 29-year-old is up to 29 home runs this season. He leads the American League in that category and is building a legitimate case for AL MVP. He came into Saturday’s game with a .319 batting average.
He also entered first among all qualifying MLB players in on-base percentage (.431), slugging percentage (.625), OPS (1.055) and a variety of other metrics, such as offensive WAR (4.3).
Earlier in the day, he was named the AL’s starting DH in this year’s All-Star Game.
Alvarez’s first long ball arrived in the first inning. He carried that one 403 feet to left center, scoring a pair of runs and giving the Astros an early 2-1 lead. They didn’t score again until fourth, however. By then, they were chipping away at what became a 7-2 deficit left by Hunter Brown, who gave up six hits, seven runs (six earned) and four walks in four innings of work.
Alvarez assisted Houston in climbing out of that hole, too. He hit an RBI single in the fifth and a sac fly that scored a run in the seventh. The Astros knotted the game up 8-8 later that frame, with a Zach Dezenzo pinch-hit single plating the game-tying run.
Alvarez finished the job in the ninth with no outs after Jose Altuve drew a leadoff walk. In 2022, the same season Alvarez hit his first July 4 walk-off homer, he blasted a big fly that provided the Astros with the go-ahead runs in their World Series-clinching victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.
It’ll be tough for Alvarez to knock a more impactful four-bagger. That’s not to say, of course, that Saturday’s holiday no-doubter will be forgotten anytime soon.
