Yankees allow three homers, strike out 17 times in ALCS Game 1 loss to Astros

HOUSTON – It was yet another Minute Maid mess for the Yankees against what has been an October nemesis like none other the last decade.

The good feelings spawned by a victory over the Guardians in Game 5 of the American League Division Series Tuesday night in New York went up in smoke some 24 hours later, smoke from fireworks exploding inside Minute Maid Park after multiple Astros homers in the latter stages of Game 1 of the ALCS.

There were three of them – which came rapid fire over the sixth and seventh innings – that, combined with the usual Justin Verlander excellence this time of year, led to a 4-2 loss in front of a rowdy sellout crowd of 41,487.

“It’s one game. This is a seven-game series,” said Anthony Rizzo, whose solo homer in the eighth pulled the Yankees within 4-2. “It was a close game, and they came out on top.”

The Yankees, who struck out 17 times and will send Luis Severino to the mound Thursday night against Framber Valdez in an attempt to even the best-of-seven series, have won exactly one LCS game in this ballpark – Game 1 of the 2019 ALCS, which they lost in six games. The Yankees, knocked out of the wild-card game at the Stadium in 2015 by Houston, went 0-for-4 here in the 2017 ALCS, including losing Games 6 and 7.

The formula in many of those games played out Wednesday night. The Astros flexing just enough power – Yuli Gurriel homered off Clarke Schmidt to break a 1-1 tie in the sixth, Chas McCormick hit another two batters later and Jeremy Pena added a solo shot off Frankie Montas leading off the seventh – and the Yankees offense mostly stifled by Astros pitching, putting pressure on their own pitchers to be about perfect.

“They’ve got a great staff over there, top to bottom,” said Aaron Judge, who went 0-for-4 with one strikeout in falling to 4-for-24 with two homers this postseason. “They’ve got great arms out of the 'pen that are effective to both sides of the plate. And good starting pitchers that can work, not only one or two pitches, but mix in three or four pitches. So it’s a tough matchup, but you want to play against the best, you want to compete against the best. That’s what we have in front of us and we have to go out and do our job.”

Jameson Taillon, who began this postseason in the bullpen, was pretty good, allowing one run and four hits over 4 1/3 innings.

Verlander allowed one run on Harrison Bader’s fourth homer of the postseason and three hits over six innings in which he walked one and struck out 11. The 39-year-old, the presumed AL Cy Young Award winner after a 18-4, 1.75 regular season, came into the night 4-1 with a 2.75 ERA in eight career starts against the Yankees in the playoffs.

“That’s who he is,” Rizzo said of Verlander. “It’s not surprising, him pitching like that.”

Wednesday was a far cry from Game 1 of the Division Series against the Mariners when Verlander allowed six runs and 10 hits.

Still, the Yankees had to feel good with the score tied at 1 going into the bottom of the sixth, Verlander having thrown his 103rd and final pitch in the top half.

“Stealing a game against Verlander would have been nice,” Taillon said.

But the Yankees curiously stayed with Schmidt, who got out of a jam in the fifth by inducing a 4-6-3 double play, and the pitcher hung a 0-and-2 slider leading off the bottom of the sixth to Gurriel, who hammered it into the Crawford Boxes overhanging leftfield. McCormick got a wayward full-count sinker later in the inning to make it 3-1.

Pena homered off Montas, who was left off the Division Series roster with the right shoulder inflammation that cost him the last few weeks of the regular season, to start the seventh, making it 4-1.  

The Yankees pulled within 4-2 in the eighth against Rafael Montero on the Rizzo homer and put two on with two outs later in the inning. But the seed-throwing Ryan Pressly, part of the AL’s top bullpen, struck out Matt Carpenter to end the threat. Carpenter, activated just before the postseason, went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts, falling to 0-for-6 with six strikeouts in these playoffs.

Pressly struck out two in a perfect ninth for the save.  

“We’re facing good pitching, but that’s what’s going to happen when you get this far in the postseason,” Carpenter said. “Every time you step in the box, you’re going to face somebody who’s really good. I have to find a way, we as a club, have to find a way. We have to have a short memory. Forget about the way it went today and come out ready to go tomorrow.”