Yankees' season ends as Astros complete ALCS sweep

In the end, the Astros were simply better.

Again.

The Yankees, in World Series-or-bust mode from the time they broke camp in April, saw their postseason run end Sunday at the hands of a team that has made a habit of doing just that.

Unable to hold an early three-run lead and a later one-run edge, the Yankees were swept out of the American League Championship Series with a 6-5 loss to the Astros in Game 4 in front of 46,545 fans at the Stadium.

It was the fourth time in eight years that the Astros have eliminated the Yankees in the postseason and the third time in six years that it has occurred in the ALCS.

“It’s an awful day, an awful ending,’’ an emotional Aaron Boone said. “It stings. It hurts. The ending, as I’ve said before, is cruel.”

This year’s World Series, which will be contested without the Yankees — just as it has been since 2009 — will start Friday in Houston with the Astros hosting the Phillies. The Astros joined the 2007 Rockies and 2014 Royals as teams that have swept the Division Series and League Championship Series in the same season.

“What it comes down to is they just played better than us,’’ Aaron Judge said. “Played better defense, came up with the big hits and came away with the series.”

The Yankees, who went 12-for-94 and scored four runs in the first three ALCS games, performed better at the plate Sunday, picking up nine hits. However, they had only one hit — Harrison Bader’s go-ahead home run in the sixth inning — in their last 17 at-bats and struck out nine times to finish with 50 in four games.

“Unfortunately, many of us have felt this feeling together, that not getting all the way there and having this ending,’’ Boone said. “And it never gets easier. You try to put it in perspective and with, obviously, families and health and things like that and real tragedies out there, you try to have that perspective. But you understand keenly what everyone is feeling right now in that room. So you try and reflect a little bit on it and also hopefully allow it to be another log on the fire that creates that burn and motivation heading into the offseason that you want to be on that stage, you want to be playing for all of it, and you got to keep fighting for it.”

The Yankees went 2-9 against the Astros in 2022. Five of the games were decided by one run, three by two runs and two by three runs — and it was the Astros who usually found a way to win.

“They kept having an answer for every single time we scored or did something,’’ Judge said. “Hats off to them on a great season and best of luck in the World Series.”

“They’re a really good team,'' Jameson Taillon said. "So are we, but they showed up when it mattered and proved how good of a team they were. The starting pitching all the way through the bullpen, quality arms, quality at-bats. They do a little bit of everything well in that lineup. They’ve got the power, they’ve got the lack of chase — they don’t strike out a ton — just a really deep, complete team.” 

The Yankees’ defense, much improved this season but still mistake-prone at times, committed a key miscue in the seventh after Bader’s homer provided a 5-4 lead. Jonathan Loaisiga struck out Martin Maldonado looking, but Jose Altuve reached on an infield single, hitting a grounder to Anthony Rizzo and barely beating Loaisiga to first base, a call that was upheld by replay. Jeremy Pena then hit a grounder to second that appeared to be a possible double-play ball, but Gleyber Torres’ toss to shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who came flying across the bag, couldn’t be handled and went into short leftfield. Torres was charged with an error, although Kiner-Falefa probably deserved some of the blame for his positioning as he tried to catch it.

Yordan Alvarez followed with an RBI single to right, tying it at 5-5, and after Clay Holmes came on, Alex Bregman’s single to right made it 6-5.

The Yankees built a 3-0 lead after two innings against Lance McCullers Jr., getting RBI singles from Giancarlo Stanton and Torres in the first and a two-out RBI double from Rizzo in the second.

Nestor Cortes, who has been battling groin issues since the start of the postseason, was forced from the game in the third with what the club called a left groin injury — but not before allowing a tying three-run homer by Pena, who was named the ALCS MVP.

Cortes started the inning by walking Maldonado and Altuve, and Pena — Carlos Correa’s replacement after the All-Star left for the Twins as a free agent — crushed a 408-foot shot to leftfield. Cortes then gave way to Wandy Peralta, and Yuli Gurriel’s RBI single later in the inning gave the Astros a 4-3 lead.

Rizzo’s two-out RBI single in the fourth tied it at 4-4 and Bader, the Bronxville native who has been the Yankees’ lone offensive standout this October, hit a solo homer in the sixth to give the Yankees a 5-4 lead. Bader, who has hit only 52 home runs in 537 regular-season games in his career, hit five homers in 30 at-bats in nine games this postseason.

In the final analysis, the Astros have been a better team than the Yankees for a long time. The Yankees (49-16) had a nine-game lead over Houston (40-25) on June 18, but after that, including the postseason, the Yankees went 53-53 and the Astros were 73-31.

"Not close enough,'' Boone said. "They beat us, and we end up second in the American League. We got to keep working to get better. Obviously, we had some key contributors missing that I think would have been difference-makers for us potentially. But then again, everyone has to deal with those things on some level. So it's frustrating."

A  long, cold winter beckons, one filled with questions — the primary one being where Judge will play next season.

Judge, who went 0-for-4 to finish the postseason 5-for-36 with 15 strikeouts — he was 1-for-16 against the Astros — is set to become a free agent after the World Series. He grounded out to Ryan Pressly for the Yankees’ final out of the season.

Judge, who set an American League record with 62 homers, a chase that captivated much of the industry in the regular season’s final two months, has been very public in his desire to stay with the franchise that drafted him in 2013. But there are sure to be other suitors in the marketplace, and Yankees fans shouldn’t count on a hometown discount.