NEW YORK (AP) — The Houston Astros stunned the Yankees hitless over the summer. And on Saturday they shackled New York’s hitters again to come close to finishing an impressive four-game sweep.
Cristian Javier led another suffocating performance from Houston pitchers, Chas McCormick hit a two-run homer off a fly ball that the Yankees dropped into the outfield and the Astros beat Gerrit Cole and New York 5-0 on Saturday to take a lead. 3-0 in the American League Championship Series.
Everything works out for the Astros, like that harmless fly ball by Christian Vázquez that went down the Yankee Stadium outfield and essentially set the course for the game.
“It’s the baseball thing,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “You’re kidding yourself if you think it’s luck. … It’s amazing to see how things work out for you. That was huge.”
At a redoubled pace again in October, the Astros are running a perfect 6-0 record.
In his first start in a postseason game, Javier allowed one hit while going 5 1/3 innings. Five relievers were responsible for completing the shutout of three hits.
“I went out there to throw strikes and enjoy the game,” he said.
Annoyed by the ineffectiveness of their hitters, several Yankees fans booed slugger Aaron Judge after receiving a pair of strikeouts.
Houston, trying to win its second straight league title and advance to its fourth World Series in six years, is 6-0 this postseason.
The Astros will try to sentence the series this Sunday night, when Lance McCullers Jr. will start against Néstor Cortés
Only one team in major league history has turned around a 3-0 deficit in a postseason series. That was the Boston Red Sox against the Yankees in the 2004 AL Championship Series.
Vazquez added a two-run RBI single and Trey Mancini had a sixth-inning sacrifice fly as the Astros hauled Cole off the mound to open a five-run lead.
Javier pitched seven innings when the Astros combined for a no-hitter at Yankee Stadium on June 25, and he looked just as dominant in this one.
He didn’t let a ball go out of the infield until Giancarlo Stanton doubled off him in the fourth — the Yankees’ only hit of the game.
Héctor Neris, Ryan Stanek, Hunter Brown, Rafael Montero and Bryan Abreu completed the task. The Yankees had a pair of hits with two outs in the ninth.
The course of the game took shape when Harrison Bader dropped a fly ball from Vazquez with two outs in the second inning. Bader was about to catch the ball when right fielder Judge crossed in front of his teammate. Vázquez sensed that he was out and was beginning to take steps to go to his dugout, but he had to hurry back to first base.
McCormick, batting ninth, sent a fastball traveling 335 feet down the opposite field, depositing it in right field. It was his second home run of the series, a shot that would not have come out of any other ballpark in the majors, according to Statcast.
Bader was caught stealing at second by Vazquez after leading off the fifth with a walk.
One of the best offenses in baseball this season, New York has looked impotent—he’s batting .127 in the series (12 hits in 94 at-bats) with 41 strikeouts. Those are staggering numbers considering the Yankees led the majors with 254 home runs this year and were second in runs behind the Los Angeles Dodgers.
New York, whose last World Series dates back to the 2009 championship, is on the verge of shipwreck against Houston for the fourth time in eight seasons.
Judge, who set an AL record with 62 homers in the regular season, went 4-for-6 with two strikeouts and no infield ball. He is batting .156 with 14 strikeouts and three RBIs in the playoffs.
“He’s our go-to guy on offense, key in our lineup, so we need him to bring something to the table,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “That said, to win these games, you need input from everyone. Sometimes it can be something small, sometimes something big, sometimes something unexpected.”
José Altuve ended the worst offensive slump of his career by doubled in the fifth inning, his first hit in 26 trips to the plate this postseason. Going 0-for-25 left him with the longest hitless streak at the start of a postseason in history. He broke a record set by Dal Maxvill of the St. Louis Cardinals with a 22-0 win over Detroit in the 1968 World Series.
For the Astros, the Venezuelan Altuve 5-1. The Dominican Jeremy Peña 5-0. Cubans Yordan Álvarez 4-0, Yuli Gurriel 4-1 with a run scored. Puerto Rican Vázquez 3-1 with one run scored and two produced.
For the Yankees, the Venezuelans Gleyber Torres 3-0, Oswaldo Cabrera 2-0.
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Javier and Astros suffocate Yankees 5-0; take 3-0 lead