Yordan Alvarez fell victim to his own ballpark during Thursday’s Opening Day.
The Houston Astros slugger Alvarez came to bat in the first inning of his team’s season-opening matchup against the Los Angeles Angels at Daikin Park in Houston, Texas. Alvarez got ahold of an 0-1 offspeed pitch from Angels starter Jose Soriano and very nearly deposited it into the right-field seats.
Unfortunately for Alvarez though, the ball hit off a horizontal rafter in the Daikin Park roof and then dramatically hooked right as a result and landed in foul territory. Here is the unusual video.
The Daikin Park roof took a potential home run away from Yordan Alvarez pic.twitter.com/9ECK49DFK1
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) March 26, 2026
Normally, a ball that hits off the roof is officially ruled as a ground-rule double. However because Alvarez’s shot was still technically in foul territory at the time that it struck the rafter, it was ruled as a foul ball (with the umpires upholding the call upon review after a challenge by the Astros).
Had that been a home run by Alvarez, Thursday’s game could have gone very differently. Soriano settled down from there to strike out Alvarez as well as six more batters over his six scoreless innings as the Angels beat the Astros by a final score of 3-0.
The roof at Daikin Park is retractable but was closed on Thursday despite sunny, pleasant conditions in the Houston area. While Alvarez is far from the first player to get robbed of a home run by the roof of that very same ballpark, the way that the game played out for the Astros made his unlucky break that much more painful.
