Jose Altuve Tries to Make His Teammates the Heroes, But The Most Clutch Postseason Player Of All Time Rewrites History on the Rangers

ARLINGTON — Yainer Diaz just starts jumping. The Houston Astros rookie knows that Jose Altuve has done it again. The Most Clutch Postseason Baseball Player of All Time flipped another gigantic game completely upside down, changed everything with one swing. Only Diaz, jumping as heads for third, does not even understand the full extent of it.

“It wasn’t until after the play that I realized we took the lead there,” Diaz says later in a still buzzing Astros clubhouse. “With everything going on, I didn’t even notice the score.” It is easy to lose track of things when everyone in the ballpark, except Jose Altuve, is completely losing their minds.

Altuve’s 40-year-old Houston Astros teammate Justin Verlander isn’t just jumping out of the dugout. He’s leaping every which way, pumping his fists, twirling, screaming at the top of his lungs. Teenage girls who win Taylor Swift tickets get less excited than this. And it’s all warranted.

But Jose Altuve? He just rounds the bases at a measured pace, looking almost stoic. Barry Sanders even used to show more outward emotion than this when he handed the ball to the ref after scoring a touchdown. Once he’s back in the dugout, The Most Clutch Postseason Baseball Player of All Time seeks out the 32-year-old journeyman who made his moment possible. Altuve finds Jon Singleton, pounds the chest of the hulking 6-foot-2, 230–pound first baseman and tells Singleton how big the pinch hit walk he worked against Texas Rangers closer Jose Leclerc really is.

“That’s just who Jose Altuve is,” Singleton says of Altuve congratulating him.

Of course, Jose Altuve is the real Him for the Astros. His three run blast into the left field stands at Globe Life Field in the top of the ninth inning is the third go-ahead home run in the ninth inning or later he’s hit in the playoffs. No man in baseball history can match that. Fourteen of Altuve’s career 26 postseason home runs have given the Astros the lead or tied the game overall. You guessed it. . . no hitter in baseball history can match that either. Derek Jeter is second there with 12.

This Golden Era of Houston Baseball is being driven by the most clutch hitter of all time. This time, Altuve turns a 4-2 Rangers lead into a 5-4 Astros Game 5 win, delivering the biggest moment of all in the best game of this entire 2023 baseball postseason so far.

Altuve pushes the Astros within one win of the World Series, one win from Houston’s fifth World Series appearance in the last seven seasons. He stuns the Rangers, who thought they finally had the Astros, felt a potential 3-2 lead in this Buc-ee’s Cup of an all-Texas American League Championship Series firmly in their grasp.

And afterwards? Well, Altuve is looking for more teammates to congratulate, to make them feel every bit as big in this Astros’ moment as he is. He gets rookie Grae Kessinger, who comes in as a pinch runner for Singleton and makes a jumping catch to snare a speeding line drive in the bottom of the ninth, on the field. Altuve will rave about Kessinger’s defense, poise and readiness.

“We can talk about the physical stuff, hitting, his defensive approach, whatever we want,” Kessinger tells PaperCity of learning from Altuve. “But he’s just the same guy every day. He knows how to prepare for games.

“. . . He does things the right way.”

And he’s always ready for the big moment.

“He’s so clutch,” Astros third baseman Alex Bregman says. “He has a slow heartbeat. And it seems like in the biggest moments in this franchise’s history, he always comes through.”

This one against the Rangers is as big as any of them. Altuve puts the punctuation point on an instant classic of a championship series game with that epic home run. This game is so good, so full of twists, that a TV special would be made about it someday if the Yankees and Red Sox had played it.

There is the three-run home run from Adolis Garcia that sees the emerging Rangers’ postseason star make one of slowest walks to first base you’ll ever see, with a bat flip and stutter stomp step on home plate for extra emphasis. (A celebration that is completely earned considering the magnitude of the moment.) There is the fracas at home plate when Garcia is hit by a 97 MPH fastball from Astros reliever Bryan Abreu in the bottom of the eighth inning with both benches and both bullpens clearing when Garcia goes right after Astros catcher Martin Maldonado. Garcia needs to be held back from lunging at Maldonado several times. Abreu, Garcia and Astros manager Dusty Baker all get ejected.

“I was like saying, ‘My bad. It wasn’t on purpose,’ ” Abreu says. “He said, ‘Hey, bullshit.’ ”

Garcia remains convinced that Abreu and the Astros hit him on purpose. What is undebatable is how much louder the Astros dugout grows in the wake of the near fight and Garcia’s indignant reaction.

“Of course it did,” Maldonado says when someone asks if the incident fires up the Astros.

“I’m going to tell my kids about this game,” Astros everyman Mauricio Dubon says. “It’s crazy. If it’s not a first ballot, I don’t know what it is.”

It is certainly another game where the Astros show their championship heart — and maybe rip the Rangers’ heart right out in the process. For a game Texas team does everything it can to win this game — and still staggers back to Houston for Sunday night’s Game 6, one loss from elimination.

“He’s so clutch. He has a slow heartbeat. And it seems like in the biggest moments in this franchise’s history, he always comes through.” — Alex Bregman on Jose Altuve

The Rangers lose because of Altuve, of course. But before Altuve can add another jolt of clutch magic to his walkoff home run against the Yankees that sent the Astros to the 2019 World Series, Yainer Diaz must get the first playoff hit of his life to lead off that ninth inning. Diaz does to snap a 0 for 10 run in these playoffs, a run where regularly playing time has become elusive for him and every at-bat becomes more and more pressurized. Before Altuve can pull an Altuve, Singleton, who didn’t get a single at-bat in the Astros’ first eight playoff games, must get on base too.

The man who took eight years to get back to the Big Leagues after marijuana suspensions and bouts of depression does it without ever swinging his bat. Instead, Singleton works the at-bat like a forensic scientist works a cold case, earning a six pitch walk to send Altuve to the plate with two men on.

“It means a lot,” Singleton says of contributing to such a monumental win, maybe a dynasty extender. “It means the world. That’s the reason I’m on this team to help us win ballgames.”

Altuve’s Merry Men

Altuve takes all that help, the contributions from the bench guys who other superstars might overlook or even dismiss, and makes it into something special. No one remembers Diaz’s first playoff hit, Singleton’s gutsy walk or Kessinger’s ninth inning snare at shortstop if The Most Clutch Postseason Baseball Player of All Time doesn’t hit that home run.

Altuve does though and as the ball soars towards the left field wall — with Rangers rookie outfielder Evan Carter jumping a little too early in his doomed home run robbery attempt — the truth becomes unmistakable.

“This dude is one of the baddest dudes I’ve ever seen,” Dusty Baker, the Astros’ 74-year-old baseball lifer of a manager, says of Altuve. “And I’ve seen some greats.”

This one against the Rangers is as big as any of them. Altuve puts the punctuation point on an instant classic of a championship series game with that epic home run. This game is so good, so full of twists, that a TV special would be made about it someday if the Yankees and Red Sox had played it.

The Astros continue to win big season after season, playoffs after playoffs, with one of the greatest of all time lighting the way. Jose Altuve may keep creating the moments, but he’ll never let the moment be all about him. That’s not how you foster bonds and start making everyone in the entire clubhouse believe.

Only the most uncreative of baseball observers talk about Jose Altuve’s 5-foot-6 height anymore. Altuve’s turned himself into a giant, made his stature just a footnote to the strength of his feats.

“I’m really happy,” Altuve swears in the wake of his latest all-time October moment. “Don’t let my emotions confuse you.”

There is no confusing the reality. No one in baseball can deny what is happening now. The Most Clutch Postseason Baseball Player of All Time will always bring his team along, change the idea of what everyone thinks is possible.