ERST LESEN! » lacked a bit of con

Jose Altuve points his bat toward center field, lets it linger for three seconds, then four. Houstonians havent started their weekend yet, and a sea of empty green seats lords over Altuves left shoulder on this Friday evening in late August. He swings his hips, a subtle dance in the batters box -- one, two, cha cha cha -- and as the 2-2 pitch makes its slow descent toward home plate, he kicks his striding left foot and swings.The Astros already have two men on -- Alex Bregman holds court at first; George Springer, 90 feet from home -- so when Altuve sends a chopper to third, Tampas Evan Longoria fields it cleanly, then launches it to second base. Springer sprints home for the run, Bregman is out. Altuve jokes sheepishly that he used to have world-class speed when he was 16, but 10 years later, hes still an orange blur on the base path. So when Tampas second baseman attempts to turn two, hes close, but not that close.Altuve is safe at first.This play -- a mostly unremarkable groundball that skipped to third base in game No. 128 of 162 -- is the one Jose Altuve circles in red. Not the high fastball he hammered to left field for his 1,000th hit nine games earlier, a milestone he reached faster than any current major leaguer, save Ichiro Suzuki. Not the single he poked through shortstop and third, five games before that, when he recorded his eighth four-hitter of the year, the most for any player in a single season this decade. No, this groundout, along with the chain of events that ensue -- a sequence that starts with this fielders choice and ends with Altuve jogging across home plate -- make up the moment Altuve says hes proudest of all year. And its here, in this trip around the base paths, that the surprise and inevitability of his 2016 MVP candidacy come to light.There was a time, this summer, when Altuve looked to have the award all but locked up. But as Mookie Betts Red Sox and Josh Donaldsons Blue Jays make a beeline for the playoffs, Altuves Astros have played .500 baseball in September. Still, he remains in the conversation. As does?Mike Trout, whose Angels have been a season-long non-factor. What sustains Altuves hopes down the stretch? Plays like this one.If he was not on our team, wed probably be last in our division right now, says Carlos Correa, Altuves double-play partner at shortstop. If you take Josh Donaldson out of the Blue Jays, I think the Blue Jays would be fine. If you take Mookie out of the Red Sox, theyre gonna be fine. Theyre gonna still win. If you take Altuve out of the Houston Astros? We have no chance.MVP. Most. Valuable. Player.For Correa, and for his teammates, Altuves impact on the team is unmatched. He is still just 26 years old and in his fifth full season in the league, but he is one of the veterans in this clubhouse. Altuve played through the dark years and Houstons barely-concealed tank, when the 100-loss campaigns piled up like festering garbage in a trash heap. He is one of just a handful of Astros who made it to the other side: He won a batting title in 2014 and, now, with him in the mix for a second, Altuves teammates whisper his accolades with a reverence and gravitas and, yes, hyperbole that would make even Chuck Norris blush.Its crazy that hes never had a five-hit game before because hes had about 30 four-hit games since hes been here, starting pitcher?Collin McHugh says. (This ones only a moderate embellishment. He has had 20.)Thank god I hit behind him, Correa says. Hes always on base. (Altuves.396 on-base percentage is the leagues fourth-best clip.)He just somehow, some way, hits it where the D is not. I just think he can actually put the ball where he wants to, Springer says. A slump for him is 0-for-4. Springer is not far off: Altuve has 22 more multi-hit outings (59) than no-hit performances (37) this year. The baseball is a grapefruit for him most days; his heat map, a bright red, pick-your-poison array of good-to-great batting averages in some zones, other-worldly batting averages in others.Altuve, himself, artfully dodges the notion that hes baseballs best hitter. Hes batting .338, third best in MLB, and boasts 157 in OPS+, good for fifth, but he persists.We got Miguel Cabrera. Donaldson. A bunch of hitters. And then Im behind them.Modesty, feigned or otherwise, tempers Altuves self-reflection. Perhaps that same impulse compels him to name an innocuous grounder as the best moment of an MVP campaign laden with bigger, splashier hits. It stands to reason ... until Correa points to this same moment as his favorite Altuve play of 2016. McHugh and Colby Rasmus do the same. And Craig Biggio, Houstons Hall of Fame second baseman, echoes them, too. One mans innocuous grounder is another mans gem, proof of how he uniquely elevates his team.Like much of Altuves journey, it starts with an unforeseen bounce.Altuves just a few feet off the bag when Drew Smyly, on the mound for Tampa, throws to Brad Miller at first base to keep the speedy second baseman in check; he has swiped 27 bases this year. It looks like Altuve has been picked off, but -- oh! -- Smylys toss ricochets off Millers glove, skips to the warning track, and Altuve runs ahead, uncontested.Altuve is safe at second.Before he was their surest playmaker, Altuve was the Astros most confounding puzzle.Go ahead: Comb the archives for 5-foot-6 dynamos who can hit the ball with relentlessly consistent abandon. Youll find a sepia-toned Hack Wilson, who stood at Altuves height and went yard 20-plus times in six different seasons ... mostly in the Roaring 20s. Beyond him, the cupboard is awfully bare. So when Omar Lopez, the Astros Venezuelan scout and hitting instructor, traveled to Barquisimeto and watched Altuve play for the first time on a tropical day in August 2006, he hoped Altuve only looked that small from his far-off vantage point in the stadiums nosebleeds. Lopez went down to field level after the game, angling to get a better look, hoping to get confirmation Altuve wasnt that short. He couldnt be, right?He was.Wow, hes little, Lopez muttered to himself. Hes real little.Lopez hadnt even come to Barquisimeto to see Altuve; rather, hed dropped by to check out a shortstop on the teams radar. But it was Altuve, from Maracay, who caught his eye, not on one play alone, but on the countless times he sprayed the ball to right and center field, bat hitting ball on an endless loop; in the contact he made and the sound of his bat when he made it.Lopez invited Altuve to a mini-camp at the Astros Venezuelan academy in Valencia a few weeks later, after which Al Pedrique, the Astros special assistant, offered him a contract and a $15,000 signing bonus. Pedrique, like Lopez, was taken with Altuves bat, the quickness of his hands and the power he showed despite his frame. Hes not going to embarrass anybody, Pedrique promised the Astros.Pedrique liked Altuve. So did Lopez. The duo, along with Ricky Bennett, the Astros farm director, vouched for Altuve and attached their names and reputations to a short, skinny, sneaky-talented Venezuelan. They still bet low. Lopez saw him reaching Double-A, maybe even Triple-A ball. Pedrique thought hed hit .270 or .280, then leave his footprint as an average major leaguer with a host of stolen bases to his name.I just never thought hed be a superstar.Altuve is quiet, almost introspective on the matter. Hes less resentful than simply aware of the fact of his heights past prejudices. The sky is blue. The grass is green. Altuve is short, and the world still spins.I put myself in their position, he says. I know its really hard to believe in a guy my size.Still, even old slights can keep their sting. Back in Maracay, that same undersized teen didnt make the invitation cut for a friends quincea?era. The crime? His unforgivable, irredeemable social gaffe? Altuve wore the same shirt and the same shoes all the time, no matter the event.Now, what about now?! he hollered, just last month, blood boiling over a 10-year-old indignity. Ive got plenty of shoes in my closet! Ive got plenty of T-shirts! Whats she going to say now?Correa loves that story. He couldnt get enough when he heard Altuve relive his past shame on a road trip to Minnesota. I was just dying.Correa simply cannot reconcile his All-Star second baseman with the sad-sack teenager who fell on the low rung of Maracays social food chain. Correa is 6-foot-4, so Altuve barely clears his shoulders, but Correa looks up to him. The two share a complex handshake ritual: right hand forward, right hand back, two taps, JUMP. They face off in FIFA with the kind of vigor that incites religious wars. And they stand shoulder to shoulder in the dugout, trading questions, swapping wisdom. Tuve, what are looking for in that pitchers delivery? What pitches are you gonna sit on? Why this? Why that? Why?Correa picks his brain incessantly, a 6-foot gnat buzzing forever in Altuves orbit. Jason Castro and Marwin Gonzalez do the same. McHugh and Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel do too, eager to add another weapon to their arsenal: a view from the other side, courtesy of one of the games most prolific hitters. Altuves MVP case is made on more than his batting average, OPS or the newfound pop in his bat, his teammates say: Altuves truest value to this Astros club is in the insight he lends, the peek-behind-the-curtain of his stock room of baseball acumen.If we didnt have him, Keuchel says, we wouldnt be right in the thick of things.And so when they all say their favorite Altuve play transpires after the Rays first baseman lobs a lazy dribbler back to the pitcher, it makes a perfect kind of sense. What happens next? Altuve takes off, like he has before, when no one expects him to. When, perhaps, no one else would have.Altuve stands at second for just a heartbeat, when Brad Miller tosses the ball back to the mound casually. A little too casually because -- oh! -- Altuve pauses for a split second, hops, gathering momentum, and then bolts.Now hes going to third! the Astros play-by-play man screams giddily, breathlessly. Jose Altuve is running wild!He dives headfirst into a cloud of dust and rubber; the Rays throw to third comes in just behind him. Altuve raises a hand toward the umpire to make sure he beat the throw, and gets his confirmation.Altuve is safe at third.Baseball is a game of failure. Jose Altuve doesnt care.Last October, in the minutes after Kansas City closer Wade Davis finished off the Astros in order -- first Preston Tucker, then Altuve, then Springer -- to take the 2015 American League Division Series, Altuve walked into Houston manager A.J. Hinchs office.Altuve was still in his uniform. His eyes were wet. And he apologized. He felt personally at fault, he said, for the teams early exit from the postseason.This has nothing to do with you, Hinch reassured Altuve. You had a great year. We had a great year. Be proud.In truth, Altuve posted very un-Altuvian numbers in the Astros five games against the eventual World Series champions. He went just 3-for-22, came up with no extra-base hits and collected only one RBI. Altuve wants, and expects, to be the difference for his club, and in the ALDS, he felt, he fell short.He needed an offseason palate cleanser.Altuve spent his first four years in the league as one of its best bad-ball hitters, long finding ways to succeed when, by all rights, he should not. He jumped to swat at pitches flying over his 5-6 frame. He lunged for a ball clear in the other batters box. Usually he made contact. Then in a well-documented about-face, Altuve decided heading into 2016 that this was the year hed improve his plate discipline.A couple of days after Houstons pitchers and catchers reported to Kissimmee, Florida, in the spring, Altuve left the clubhouse after practice and spotted a few of his old minor league mates, Omar Lopez, from the Astros Venezuelan summer league team, and Rodney Linares, his High Class-A manager in Greeneville. The two were heading back to the Astros minor league complex, but Altuve asked them to make a pit stop at the batting cage.Flick me the ball here, here, and here, he told them.Middle in.Now middle away.He wanted to work on his approach at the plate, he said. They did, that afternoon, and for the next two afternoons, 20 or so extra minutes after team workouts. Altuve took his reps -- 30 to 40 swings in all each day -- honing his discipline, forcing himself to be exactly what he had never been before: picky at the plate.Its practically Tiger Woodsian, this biological imperative to, if not overhaul, then obsessively fine-tune an approach that is so far from broken. The net result of that tinkering: his lowest O-swing rate in four years (32.5 percent), the highest walk rate of his career (8.3 percent), a productivity surge that dwarfs his previous best (94 RBIs; 66 last year) and a power boost (24 home runs) that has already eclipsed his combined output from 2013 and 2014.Im trying to drive the ball, not just slap the ball and get hits or put it in play, he says. My strikeouts are going up, but I dont care. My other numbers are going up, too.He is Jose Altuve, next generation: all of the perks of the old model, now on turbo-drive.Altuve wipes the dirt off his pant leg and waits.Hes a whirl of movement most days, stopping and starting in the base paths, watching his teammates take batting practice in the field, his quick, short stutter steps a giveaway hes swaying to a beat only he can hear. In the clubhouse, hes something of an early 2000s pop connoisseur, dancing to the Backstreet Boys or NSYNC or the Jonas Brothers. Hes so rarely still, which is really how he got here, at third base, in the first place.With Altuve looking on from third, Carlos Correa draws a walk, so Evan Gattis steps up to the plate. He looks at a few pitches before looping a single that glides over second and hops into center field. Altuve trots leisurely -- no need to rush this time -- slows up, and taps his foot on the plate. The Astros grab the 2-0 lead. Altuve is safe at home.When he scored from third on the grounder-turned-extra-base-bonanza, Altuve gave the Astros a classically Altuve-like boost. Other guys wouldve gotten to second, put their head down, let the guy lob it, and then ... whatever, Craig Biggio says.The single run turned out to be the difference that night in Houston, and the Astros would skate by the Rays 5-4. His wasnt the game winner -- that honor would go to Gattis, with his walk-off homer to left in the bottom of the ninth. But once again, Altuve found a way to be the pivot point.Its possible, even probable, that Altuves margin of victory just wont be enough by seasons end. After steamrolling through August, he has come back to Earth in September. Time is running out for the 2016 Houston Astros. The division has long been out of reach; for now, theyre outside the wild-card spots, too. If their season does end on Oct. 2 -- if the only kind of accolade Altuve can hope for this year is individual -- then he might have made his strongest argument on that night in late August, with that sea of green seats looming over his shoulder.Watching Altuve run the bases -- blazing to first, sprinting to second, sneaking into third -- Astros broadcaster Alan Ashby posed a question.What does an MVP look like? he asked.Look at this play. Balenciaga Triple S Sale .J. -- Marty Brodeur beat the Pittsburgh Penguins yet again. Balenciaga Triple S White Sale . Malkin got tangled up with Detroits Luke Glendening early in the third period and his left skate took the brunt of collision with the boards behind Pittsburghs net. http://www.balenciagacheapshoes.com/ . Olli Jokinen, Mark Scheifele, and Bryan Little each had a goal and an assist as Winnipeg won 5-2, handing Calgary its record-setting seventh consecutive loss on home ice. Balenciaga Shoes Sale .J. Ellis hit two-run homers and the NL West champion Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the San Diego Padres 4-0 Saturday night. Wholesale Balenciaga Speed Trainer . -- Matt Kuchar and Harris English ran away with the Franklin Templeton Shootout, shooting a 14-under 58 on Sunday in the final-round scramble to break the tournament course record.Zdeno Chara saw Daniel Pailles quick shot hit the net. He didnt see Tyler Seguins nearly-perfect pass that set up the Boston Bruins overtime winner in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup final. Still, Chara figured, it was "probably a good pass." It was. It was also arguably the biggest play Seguin has made in these playoffs. By recording just his sixth point in 18 games, the 21-year-old showed that even amid a goal-scoring slump he can still find a way to be relevant. "Youve seen him grow huge as a player," Paille said. "Its a bit frustrating for him right now that he hasnt scored like he has, but were not too worried about him. We know that hes a special player and we know that he can and its just a matter of time." Seguin has gotten his opportunities. In place of the injured Nathan Horton late in Game 1, Seguin was noticeable in finding scoring chances but also in not finishing them. He has just one goal in the playoffs and has been shuffled down the lineup. Saturday night, coach Claude Julien put Seguin with Paille and centre Chris Kelly, and it paid off with two Boston goals in the 2-1 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks. "We were moving pretty well, we were competinng," Seguin said.dddddddddddd "Playing with more confidence out there." Its hard to blame Seguin if he lacked a bit of confidence given his struggles. But after a poor start by everyone except goaltender Tuukka Rask in Game 2, Julien singled out Seguin as "one of the guys that picked up his game." Seguins game, from a production standpoint, has nowhere to go but up. But there are other aspects of the game, including play-making, creating for linemates and back-checking, that can make him stand out. "I think its even more important to play the other parts of the game when youre not contributing offensively," Kelly said. "I think you need to pick up other aspects of your game to make them better in order to be a better all-around player." Its an ongoing process for Seguin, who is two years removed from the Bruins Cup run that including him being a healthy scratch at times. It also included some breakout games. Seguin most likely wont get healthy-scratched this time around. Hes part of Bostons core, even if hes not scoring at the pace of David Krejci (23 points), Nathan Horton (18 points) or Milan Lucic (16 points). But Game 2 was a good start. ' ' '