The Pecan Park Eagle

September 16, 2014: Jose Altuve of the Astros leads MLB with a .342 BA. He needs only two more hits to break Craig Biggio’s single year record of 210 – and he has 12 games left in which to get them.

Jose’ Altuve! – The man’s now got 209 hits on the season through all games of September 15, 2014. – With his Astros club now standing at 67-83 for the 2014 season, Altuve has twelve games left in the 2014 season to tie and break the Astros club record of 210 set by Craig Biggio back in 1998. – He’s most probably going to do it. – “Doncha” think?

Altuve’s also now leading both major leagues with a batting average of .342 and, unless he totally collapses in his final two weeks of a season in which, as recently as last night’s three-hit game in Houston against the Indians, he has shown no indication of so doing,  he is well on his way to becoming the first Houston Astro to bag both an MLB and a league batting average championship in club history.  

Here’s a batting average chart on the Top Ten MLB Hitters for Average in all games played through last night:

 Please note too  that there are only five other eligible .300 hitters for a total of 15 players on course today for places on the magic .300 “good hitters’ mark” for 2014 – and another fourteen (14) hitting between .290 and .299 through this date with enough time remaining to crossover into baseball’s sunshine with good to super batting finishes.  In the meanwhile, Jose Altuve is on course to finish with a batting average number that would have made even grumpy old Rogers Hornsby proud. – Altuve’s 52 stolen bases also leads the SA (Stand Around) American League this season, but Dee Gordon of the NL Dodgers paces both majors with 62.

Jose Altuve is the Astros’ point of light on the long trail back to respectability and competitive-for-it-all reality in the big leagues. Let’s keeping hoping that names like Springer and Singleton also sharpen into MLB superstars and that we begin to gel a pitching staff from all those great young arms that begins to remind all of those superman staffs that served the Atlanta Braves from the early 1990’s forward on their way to the little celebration that a couple of them enjoyed last summer up in Cooperstown. The second coming of a Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussa, or Joe Torre type, but this time to Houston, wouldn’t hurt either.

In the meanwhile, let’s just be grateful for the here and now presence in Houston of a genuine batting champion to be, the Pride of Venezuela, Senor Jose Altuve!