Gurriel the Best of the Month, Yordan Álvarez the Rookie of July.

August 4, 2019

July goes down in history in the service records of Yuli Gurriel and Yordan Alvarez. Thirteen years of life separate them, but they are united by a tremendous moment they will remember forever. The first was elected Player of the Month in the American League, the second as the Best Rookie in the same period.

In some strange way both contradict the assertion that Cuban baseball is in global crisis, when it would be better to say that the crisis inhabits the structure of baseball on the largest of the Antilles and not in its capacity to generate talent, although it manifests itself in another dimension and geography.

Gurriel and Alvarez shine in a high moment for the Cuban embassy in the Majors. There are already 28 Cubans who have stepped on a field of the big tent in 2019 and the record of 30 could be reached or surpassed when rosters expand in September.

Jorge Soler is approaching 30 home runs with his 28, as is José Abreu with his 23 and Yasiel Puig with his 22. Yasmani Grandal has 19, José Iglesias is having an excellent season from every point of view, Aroldis Chapman is two saves away from 30 and Raisel Iglesias has 21 saves with a club that offers him few opportunities to work in the ninth.

In quantity and quality, Cubans have a lot to say, but perhaps none offers a dynamic like the one established by Gurriel and Alvarez in this hot July and on a red-hot team like the Houston Astros, right now the strongest candidate to win the World Series with the arrival of Zack Greinke.

Gurriel became the first player in the Texas franchise to win Player of the Month since Alex Bregman in June 2018. His robust offense is summarized like this: .398/.427/.837, with 12 home runs, seven, 31 RBIs and 18 runs scored in 24 games.

When July opened its calendar, Gurriel was batting .267 and by the 31st of the month he had raised his average to .299. In that span, only Mike Trout had more home runs (13) than the Cuban and only Rafael Devers surpassed him in RBIs (34).

Simply impressive what the veteran is achieving at a time when most people who pass 35 years old view with concern the movement that calls for youth and only youth in the best baseball in the world. A star in Cuba, Japan and the Majors, what Gurriel is doing is worthy of applause.

Alvarez, for his part, is making a case to finish as the best of the debutants in the American, despite not having started the season and having arrived only after posting numbers in the Houston farm that were impossible to overlook.

Since he set foot in Houston on June 9, Alvarez has been a sensation that July exploded with an offensive line of .333/.419/.627, plus 12 extra bases—including five home runs—and 15 RBIs in 21 games. He has already accumulated 13 home runs and 39 RBIs, while his OPS stands at 1.120, a number reserved only for the super talented with the bat.

Alvarez left behind a mark of 34 RBIs in the first 30 games that belonged to Albert Pujols and at just 22 years old he has the world in the palm of his hands if he keeps swinging the bat this way.

And yes, certainly, baseball in Cuba has been taking on water for a while, as demonstrated by what happened at the Lima 2019 Pan American Games, but the one who represents the island in the Major Leagues is enjoying a tremendous moment, with a solid present and an assured future.