Jeremy Peña 2022 ALCS MVP

NEW YORK — Jeremy Peña might not win the American League Rookie of the Year Award, but the Astros rookie is heading back to Houston as the AL Championship Series MVP.

The 25-year-old shortstop belted his second homer of the ALCS and third of the postseason during the third inning of his club’s 6-5 victory over the Yankees in Game 4 on Sunday night. It was a massive 408-foot blast that left his bat at 104.8 mph down the left-field line at Yankee Stadium. Peña pummeled a middle-in slider from Nestor Cortes after the lefty led off the inning with walks to Martín Maldonado and Jose Altuve.

With one epic swing — hands in, hips torqued — Peña’s moonshot tied the game at 3 after the Yankees took an early lead against Lance McCullers Jr., the first time that Houston had trailed New York at the end of an in-game inning in 11 meetings this season. The only other times they trailed were via walk-offs from Aaron Judge during a series in June. The Astros quickly took the lead back on Sunday on Yuli Gurriel’s RBI single later in the 3rd.

As for Peña’s deep fly on Sunday, it was an impressive sequence of making a mid-at-bat adjustment. Cortes, who exited immediately after the homer with a left groin injury, wouldn’t throw Peña a fastball, instead attempting to jam cutters and sliders inside, with one changeup way off the plate. So, on the fifth pitch of the at-bat, Peña went hunting for offspeed ahead 3-1 in a hitter’s count — and he feasted when he saw the hanging breaking ball.

Peña knew he got all of it, transferring the barrel to his right hand as he paced out of the batter’s box, watching the ball sail before tossing the bat down the first-base line and breaking into a stride. As he rounded third base and glanced to the visiting dugout, he smiled toward his teammates and broke into a shrug, eerily akin to the one that Michael Jordan made famous during the 1992 NBA Finals.

It was also another moment illustrating how well Houston has thrived with Peña hitting behind the leadoff man Altuve. When Peña hit in the No. 2 hole during the regular season, the Astros went 42-7, and they entered Sunday undefeated this postseason with Peña hitting in that spot in every game.

Peña entered Sunday 4-for-13 in this ALCS with a homer and two doubles with a strong showing in Game 1, and he was slashing .276/.300/.586 (.886 OPS) in six games this postseason. He also put the Astros squarely on his shoulders with a solo homer in the 18th inning of their marathon ALDS Game 3 win in Seattle, the only run of what’s easily been Houston’s most tense game in these playoffs.

Peña’s 22 homers in the regular season were tied for sixth among shortstops and ranked second among first-year players to only Seattle’s Julio Rodríguez, who will likely be the runaway AL Rookie of the Year Award winner. Peña should be a finalist for that honor, if not runner-up. But Peña, who is good friends with fellow Dominican Rodríguez, will probably be fine with that given that his team is heading to the Fall Classic.