The accomplishments of Yulieski Gurriel are almost surreal

September 20, 2019

The Gurriel brothers hold in their wrists the key to two records, Yulieski with his 29th home run and Lourdes Jr. with his 19, or rather you could say with their next round-trippers.

Perhaps even Yulieski himself would not have dreamed of reaching 30 home runs and 102 RBIs to round out a season that will establish his legacy among Cuban ballplayers, a star in three countries and two continents, an essential figure when telling the story.

If on Tuesday Gurriel hit a ball out of the park and reached 100 RBIs, on Wednesday he repeated the feat to form for the first time with José Abreu and Jorge Soler a historic achievement for Cubans in the Major Leagues: a trio with 30 or more home runs and a hundred runs batted in for the plate.

In the past, two pairs of Cubans achieved 30 home runs and 100 RBIs in the same season: José Canseco and Palmeiro (1998), while Yoenis Céspedes and Abreu also made history in this regard (2015).

How magical is this season for the older of the brothers? At 35 years old, he becomes the third oldest ballplayer with a season of 30 home runs, 40 doubles and 100 RBIs to join the select club that included Dominican David Ortiz (2016, 40 years old) and Mexican Vinny Castilla (2004, 36 years old).

In the same way, he is the fifth in history with those numbers in home runs and RBIs to achieve it for the first time at an age when most ballplayers think more about their pension than their future on the field.

Gurriel makes history for Cuba, Latinos and the Astros, a club that hadn't seen a 35-year-old or older ballplayer hit 30 or more home runs since the unforgettable Jeff Bagwell hit 39 out of the park in 2003.

More from Houston? Gurriel, Alex Bregman and George Springer are the only ones on the club with 30 home runs in this 2019. The other only season when the Astros had a trio of ballplayers with 30 home runs was in 2000 with the bats of Moisés Alou, Bagwell and Richard Hidalgo.

And all of this for a ballplayer who on June 15 showed an offensive line of 255/.288/.390, but from that date forward began to unravel the ball consistently and powerfully, helped since arriving in Houston by figures as different in time and space as Bregman and Carlos Beltrán, who helped refine and improve his approach to hitting in the Major Leagues.

Gurriel arrived as a star in Cuba and Japan, but had the humility to listen and learn from those who had more experience, the capacity to absorb knowledge and make valid the notion that age is only a number to place other numbers that lead him to breathe a different air, at a higher level.

Perhaps not even he himself would have dreamed of such a season and yet, here it is for his personal history and that of everyone.