Houston Astros: Yordan Alvarez has already locked up this award

There’s nearly a week left in June, but Yordan Alvarez of the Houston Astros has already locked up the American League Player of the Month.

Nineteen games into June, Yordan Alvarez is racking up prodigious numbers … and in the process powering the Houston Astros into a dominant position in the AL West race.

Despite its 7-6 loss to the Yankees on Thursday in New York, the Houston Astros remain 43-26 and 9.5 games in front of the division. The amazing thing is that, despite Alvarez’s production, Houston has actually lost eight of its 19 games this month.

Alvarez is more than doing his part. Since June 1, he has raised his batting average by 51 points while adding 34 and 95 points to his on base and slugging averages, respectively.

His June figures alone are eye-popping. Here is a selection.

• Home runs: 8
• RBI: 26
• Batting average: .439
• On base average: .512
• Slugging average: .894

In Thursday’s 7-6 loss at Yankee Stadium, Alvarez provided what for most of the night looked like the decisive hit. His three-run third inning home run gave the Astros a 6-3 lead they held until the Yanks rallied for four runs off Astros closer Ryan Pressly. Alvarez also singled.

It was the 10th time this month alone that Alvarez has produced at least two hits; five of those were three-hit games. Perhaps surprisingly, the Astros are only 6-4 in Alvarez’s 10 multi-hit games.

Alvarez has already piled up 1.79 Win Probability Added for the Astros’ benefit this month. Extrapolate that over the course of a full season — admittedly unlikely — and you would have an 11-win player. In all of baseball history, only three players have scaled that high a stratosphere: Barry Bonds in 2001 and 2004 and Babe Ruth in 1923.

Last season the major league WPA leader (excluding the pitching component) was Shohei Ohtani at 5.1.

That’s the kind of month Alvarez is having.

Another way to gauge Alvarez’s contribution to the Astros this month is to compare his numbers with those of the early front-runner for Most Valuable Player, Aaron Judge. By any standard, Judge is enjoying both a superb year and also an excellent June. He entered the month with a 1.89 WPA, and has only added to that to the point where he now sits at 2.664 WPA.

At the end of May, Alvarez’s WPA was a decent but hardly memorable 0.855. With a week remaining in the month, his 2.649 WPA has nearly overtaken Judge and he is fast closing in on the MLB leader, Manny Machado, at 3.000.

It’s way too early to speculate whether Yordan Alvarez has entered the MVP race for good. But June Player of the Month? That contest is over.