MLB 2026: Yordan Alvarez's Triple Crown, MVP potential - ESPN

Baseball's Triple Crown — when a player finishes the season leading their league in the three major statistical categories — is one of the most difficult achievements in sports, with Miguel Cabrera in 2012 the only hitter to lead in batting average, home runs and RBIs since 1967.

And for a majority of MLB's 2026 regular season, Houston Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez had been on a historic path to join Cabrera.

On Aug. 2, he went 4-for-5 with three doubles and two RBIs, lifting his season average to .330 to lead the American League batting title race by an astounding 29 points over Tampa Bay's Yandy Diaz (the only other AL player even hitting .300) while also topping the circuit with 35 home runs (four more than New York's Ben Rice) and 84 RBIs (11 more than Rice).

The 16th Triple Crown season since 1900 was not just in play for Alvarez — it felt almost inevitable on that day. He not only towered over his fellow AL batsmen, but those from the National League as well: His 1.092 OPS was 145 points higher than Juan Soto's NL-leading mark. This was Alvarez, one of the major leagues' best hitters since his debut in 2019, at his most fearsome and his best, healthy and locked in.

But from that high-water mark, Alvarez has slowed down: Since Aug. 2, he has hit .242/.380/.383 with only three home runs and 12 RBIs in 35 games. His lead in the batting race has dwindled to five points over Tampa Bay's Chandler Simpson, and he now trails Simpson's teammate, Junior Caminero, in home runs (40-38) and Baltimore's Pete Alonso in RBIs (100-96).

Though there's still time for Alvarez to regain those leads, he'll have to heat up over these final two weeks. Nonetheless, it's still an astonishing season. His OPS remains over 1.000 at 1.016,