He was just a little late to the All-Star dance, or maybe the ballparks had paper ballots with too many hanging chads, or too few golf pencils (they still do it that way, don’t they?). Houston Astros fans, though, know that Yuli Gurriel has been banging All-Star numbers since the calendar announced the beginning of summer.

El Yuli’s aggregate numbers for the season (.277/.314/.482) are indeed pedestrian and certainly don’t scream to be anywhere but in the middle of the pack, where he ended up in the fan voting for AL first basemen. It’s been only recently that he’s put up the kind of power numbers, consistency, and game-winning hits that usually end up on the resumes of perpetual All-Star Game participants.

In the meantime, Yuli watched as six of his well-deserving teammates (who put up their All-Star-worthy numbers well in front of the voting deadline) boarded a Cleveland-bound jet shortly after the ‘Stros won a 10-inning barn-burner, Sunday, over the Los Angeles Angels, 11-10.

All-Star Game starters George Springer (OF), Alex Bregman (3B), and Michael Brantley (OF), joined pitchers Justin Verlander (the AL starting pitcher), Gerrit Cole, and Ryan Pressly, while Yuli watched on TV hoping his flaming bat didn’t cool off during the break.

Related: Pull Up a Couch, AL: Astros Send 6 To AllStros Game

Zooming In On the Numbers

Gurriel’s numbers, not unlike mylar balloons at the traveling circus, have taken on helium in just the past month: In the 30 games before the All-Star break, his slash line was an impressive .304/.341/.600.

Pull in the focus to his last 15 games, and his line engorges to a filthy .339/.388/.839 while in just the sizzling week before the break his line suddenly reveals what the kids today would call “stupid numbers”: .367/.424/1.133! For the math resistant, that gives us an OPS of 1.557 for the week, a number not for the weak.

Yuli, in fact, has gone deep in five consecutive games and in nine of his last 11, extending his hitting streak to 11 games. He also has at least one RBI in seven straight games.

“Yuli has been incredible, and I know he needs a little rest at this break, but I want to put him in the lineup tomorrow,” Astros manager AJ Hinch told reporters during the weekend. “He’s doing such a good job of being clutch and getting good pitches to hit.”

Yuli’s big hit in Sunday’s win was a sixth inning grand slam that not only tied the game but helped ignite the rally that eventually earned the ‘Stros a W.

“I like that he’s not getting too greedy,” Hinch continued, obviously elated. “The grand slam is a huge game changer for us, but he’s in every at-bat. The home runs are awesome, and it’s an incredible streak of homers in a short period of time, but the quality of at-bats have been legit for a good while now.”

Gurriel’s slam against the Angels was his 14th dinger of the season and his fifth career grand slam. It set a Houston franchise single-season record of eight grand slams, with 72 games still to play.

Last week against the Seattle Mariners, Yuli had two 10th-inning walk-off hits.

Related: La Piña Caliente: Yuli Powers Astros Toward Playoffs

What’s Carlos Beltran Got to Do With It?

Around the official first day of summer in mid-June, when the Astros were in New York for a four-game weekend series against the Yankees, Yuli met with former Astro (2004 and 2017) Carlos Beltran, currently serving as special advisor to Yankees’ GM Brian Cashman.

The two players were teammates on the Astros’ historic World Series 2017 championship team.

Alex Bregman, no slouch in the Spanish-speaking department himself, relayed that Beltran told Gurriel that his stance was somewhat closed off, according to The Houston Chronicle. That newly-opened stance, Bregman explained, now allows the right-hand hitting Yuli to see pitches better, essentially with both eyes, instead of just his left eye.

Not sure if that’s the kind of advising Cashman had envisioned when he hired Beltran, especially considering the recent results for Gurriel and the Astros, staunch American League rivals; the two teams may actually end up meeting in the ALCS.

To that end, the postseason may reveal more regarding Yuli’s Astro contributions as well as Beltran’s possible continuing Big Apple employment.

“Take Advantage of It”

“My primary focus is just to hit the ball hard,” Gurriel said shortly before his half-a-dozen mates boarded their plane to Cleveland. “But knowing that I’m seeing the ball well, going through a good stretch, I’m also trying to lift the ball as well.

“There’s some times during the season when you can’t even hit a fly ball,” Gurriel concluded. “So when you’re going good like this, you’ve got to take advantage of it.”

If Yuli can keep up even a semblance of his recent pace the next few months (when the calendar announces the arrival of autumn), no one will care that he missed the All-Star Game, and it’ll only matter that the Astros are in the playoffs…

….and La Piña Caliente had a hot hand in getting them there… and beyond.