OAKLAND, Calif. — It’s quiet in the Houston Astros’ clubhouse. Well, it was, until Carlos Correa and Jose Altuve get going. Altuve is standing in front of his locker, talking to a reporter when Correa jumps in the conversation from eight feet away. They’re shouting back and forth in Spanish, providing their own cackling laugh track.
Not long after that, they’re standing near the visitor’s dugout at O.Co Coliseum, waiting for batting practice to start. There’s Altuve, hunched over a wall with Correa at his side, standing tall. The physical difference in the two even more pronounced: Correa, big and broad, is the can’t-miss kid, and Altuve, all 5-foot-5 of him, is the unlikely star. When it’s time to take the field to stretch, Correa is right next to Altuve again, stuck on him like a Post-It note.
All of this — the pestering, the laughter, the permanent shadow — is familiar to anyone with a sibling. They’re big brother and little brother.
“We are brothers,” Correa says. “We go eat together. We play next to each other. I hit behind him in the lineup. We do pretty much everything together all the time.”
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Most recently, that means getting the Astros back in the hunt for first place in the AL West. On Monday night, as the Astros earned a big win over the Los Angeles Angels, they were each 3-for-4 at the plate, Altuve bringing his hit count to 185 and Correa hitting his 19th homer since joining the team in June. It was Houston’s third straight win, bringing the team to within one game of the first-place Texas Rangers. The Astros sit in a wild-card spot currently, but they’re looking to rebound from a rough roadtrip earlier in the month where they went 2-8 and fell out of first place.
Altuve and Correa are the two most important players to Houston’s offense. They’re not the big mashers that have made the Astros one of the most prolific home-run hitting teams in baseball this season. But they’re the engines. They get on base, score runs and form what’s already the best second base-shortstop combo in the game. And it should be for a while, as Altuve is 25 and Correa turned 21 on Tuesday.
You know the Bash Brothers. Now meet the Blast Brothers, a dynamic duo who’s having a great time as the Astros zoom past preseason expectations.
“I just don’t know which one is the big brother,” chuckles Astros manager A.J. Hinch.
THE CAN’T-MISS KID AND THE UNLIKELY STAR
When Correa was called up from Triple-A on June 8, it was the much-anticipated arrival of one of baseball’s best prospects. To Astros fans, it was like the Pope coming to town. The expectations were — and are still — that high.
The first thing Correa did when he got to the clubhouse was seek out Altuve, and Altuve rightfully assumed the brotherly role that Correa was looking for.
“As soon as I got up, he gave me a big hug,” Correa says. “It was a warm welcome. He wanted me to be here and play next to him. I felt welcome as soon I walked into the clubhouse.”
They didn’t share a common denominator. They were from the same country, but they didn’t play minor-league ball together. Their stories weren’t similar at all.
Yet when Correa walked into Astros’ clubhouse, he knew he wanted to learn from Altuve. It was really important to Correa to have someone like Altuve in his corner.
Correa was the No. 1 overall selection in the 2012 MLB draft, coming out of the Puerto Rico Baseball Academy and High School. The Astros gave him a $4.8 million signing bonus when he put his name on a contract. Ever since, he’s been one of the most hyped prospects in the game and that’s continued into this season. He might win the AL Rookie of the Year Award after hitting .279/.345/.507 with 19 homers and 56 RBIs. Some were calling him the best shortstop in the American League only a month into his career. His 3.1 Wins Above Replacement, according to Fangraphs, is second among Astros position players. Altuve, naturally, is No. 1.
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Before he even played in the big leagues, Correa was compared to Derek Jeter. Talk about high expectations. It wasn’t just for his skillset, but the aura of leadership he emits. Corra has a presence about him. He’s 6-feet-4, lean but solid, with a big smile and good knack for saying the right thing. He’s polished, poised and ready to be a star, on the field and off it.
Correa was in third grade when he decided he should go to a bilingual school, because he wanted to speak English when he made the big leagues. That’s some foresight for a 9-year-old. His dad, Carlos Correa Sr., took a third job to afford the education. Eventually, Correa went off to the baseball academy, where he was groomed to become a big leaguer.
By contrast, Altuve was sent home from his first tryout with the Astros because they thought he was too short. As a youngster in Venezuela, Altuve had all the tools, except height. An Astros scout once said, “You need to get glasses to see the kid.”
The Astros gave him another chance anyway, liked what they saw and a then-16-year-old Altuve was so glad to get a chance, he signed for whatever the Astros would give him. That was $15,000. That’s not can’t-miss money. That’s money the Astros wouldn’t miss. Oh, but it paid off.
Altuve turned into one of the best hitters in the big leagues. His 185 hits this season lead the American League. Last season, he won the AL batting crown, had the most hits and led the league in stolen bases. This season, he was invited to his third All-Star game. Turns out you need glasses to read all the honors on the back of his baseball card.
“We have different stories,” Correa says. “But at the end of the day, we had to play our way here. We had to be able to be successful in the minor-league level — and we each did it in a special way.”
If you look at Correa’s Twitter feed, there’s a chance you’ll see him retweeting things about Altuve or hashtagging pics of them with #Brothers. Altuve, as the more muted older brother, shrugs off his role in helping Correa adjust to MLB life.
“He’s a very smart guy,” Altuve says. “When you see him, you want to help him. He doesn’t need too many people telling him what to do, because he knows what to do already. He knows what it takes to be good. He’s good already. He’s one of the best players in the big leagues.”
THE FUTURE IS NOW
Being friends and sculpting a brotherly bond is nice and all, but that’s not the reason Altuve, Correa nor any of the rest of the Astros put on uniforms every day. They want to win.
In Houston, those expectations are now high. With those 100-loss seasons firmly in the past, the Astros are ahead of schedule with this surprising 2015 run. The future, as it were, is now. Whether it happens this season or in 2017, the expectation is that they’ll win a World Series. If they don’t, few might remember the Altuve-Correa bond.
Altuve is keenly aware of this. Sure, he’s helped Correa adjust to big-league life or made him feel comfortable on the road. But when asked what kind of impact he’s made with Correa, his answer is something else.
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“It’s not always inside the field. We’re talking outside the field too,” Altuve says. “We just find ways to help each other. We go to lunch a lot and we take our time to talk about what we can do to make our team better.”
“We hope,” Correa says, “to play a lot of years together for the city of Houston.”
One of the sights that Astros fans are growing accustomed to seeing is the pair’s celebration after a win. They jump in the air, raise one knee and lock their hands together.
“They are growing tighter by the day,” says Hinch. “They have that brotherly banter back and forth, they feed off each other, they challenge each other. The combo of them up the middle, you want that out of your middle infield, so it’s nice to see.”
Here’s Altuve standing in front of his locker again. Correa isn’t around. It’s quiet. This interview is over. Well, it was, until Altuve utters three more words, unprovoked right into the tape recorder. It’s the big brother who only rarely shows you how much he truly cares.
“I love that kid.”
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
