Astros Slugger Jose Altuve Reaches Career Milestone
Houston Astros second baseman Jose Altuve reached 2,000 career hits against the Seattle Mariners on Saturday night.
Altuve had 1,998 hits when he entered Saturday's game and then singled off Mariners starter Logan Gilbert to lead off the bottom of the first.
His second at-bat in the third ended in a strikeout.
Then, in the fifth, Altuve singled off Gilbert again, this time to left field. Altuve tried to stretch the single into a double, but he was thrown out by Mariners left fielder Cade Marlowe.
Still, it was a single and his 2,000th hit. As he jogged back to the dugout, he received a standing ovation from the crowd at Minute Maid Park and most of the Mariners' players were on the top step of their dugout applauding.
Altuve broke in with the Astros in 2011 as a 21-year-old when the Astros were still part of the National League. Since then, he’s led the Astros to two World Series titles in 2017 and 2022.
He is an eight-time All-Star, a six-time Silver Slugger, a three-time batting champion and the 2017 American League MVP.
Leading up to the milestone, his teammates talking about what it was like to watch Altuve get within single digits of the milestone.
“He’s a machine,” Alex Bregman said during the Angels homestand. “He can do it all on the baseball field and it's fun to hit right behind him. I get to watch it every single night.”
In MLB history, Altuve is the 296th player to reach 2,000 career hits and the 10th Venezuelan-born player to reach the milestone.
Altuve is now the third Astro to collect at least 2,000 hits in his career. The other two are in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Craig Biggio is the only Astros player with at least 3,000 hits, as he finished his career with 3,060. Behind Biggio is Jeff Bagwell, who is second all-time with 2,314 hits.
Behind Biggio is Jose Cruz, who is fourth all-time with 1,937 hits, and is the only other Astros player with at least 1,900 hits.
Cesar Cedeno (1,659), Lance Berkman (1,648), Bob Watson (1,448), Terry Puhl (1,357), Jim Wynn (1,291) and Bill Doran (1,139) round out the Top 10 in team history.
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