Rockies Spoil Yordan Alvarez’s Return

On Tuesday night, all the stars were aligned. The still first place Astros were at home against the worst team in baseball, the Colorado Rockies, the first night of a ten-game home stand that heavily favored the Astros. Their ace, Hunter Brown, was on the bump facing a brutally bad Rockies lineup, but most importantly, it was the return of Yordan Alvarez, who had spent nearly the entire season on the IL with a broken hand.

No, it wasn’t Friday, so no postgame fireworks at Daikan, but fans were hoping for big things with the team almost fully intact again after a season of injury after injury.

The baseball gods had other plans.

While Brown was fine, going 6.2 innings giving up just two earned runs, and Alvarez got on base twice via walks, the Astros floundered with a pair of errors and too many men left on base, dropping a 6-1 decision to Colorado. Much like last about 10 days ago when they nearly had a perfect game thrown against them by someone who had a 7-plus ERA, Rockies pitcher Tanner Gordon (who?), he of his mighty 6-plus ERA gave up just one run (a Jesus Sanchez blast) in five innings of work against the home team.

It was yet another anemic output by an Astros squad that has scored fewer than four runs in more than half of their games in 2025. When you add in a pair of really devastating errors that cost them four runs and an 0-for-all-night with runners in scoring position, it was not a the red carpet rollout for the return of Alvarez anyone was expecting.

Was there good news? Definitely. Alvarez did look solid in his return flying out to the warning track once, walking twice and looking serviceable in left field. The Mariners lost to San Diego at home keeping the Astros one-and-a-half games ahead in the AL West. And, the team still has two more against the Rockies followed by four with the Angels, all at home.

But Tuesday was another chapter in what has become an all-too-familiar story this season: a bad loss to a really bad team.