Yankees - 000 200 000 00 - 2 6 0 Astros - 010 010 000 01 - 3 7 0
Kristie Ackert, Daily News:
It was a missed opportunity. Running into an out at home in the sixth, the truncated start of James Paxton and the chance to go home with a two-game lead over the Astros in the American League Championship Series.
Sunday night, the Yankees took a lead on Houston right-hander Justin Verlander but couldn't hold it and the Astros walked off a 3-2 win in the bottom of the 11th on Carlos Correa's lead-off home run. ...
This best-of-seven game series continues Tuesday night in the Bronx tied at one game a piece. ...
Verlander dueled with the Yankees bullpen after Paxton could not get out of the third inning. ... Verlander held the Yankees to two runs on five hits, striking out seven over 6.2 innings pitched. ...
It was converted starter J.A. Happ who gave up the home run to Correa.
But there had been so many missed opportunities before.
In the sixth inning with DJ LeMahieu getting a single of Verlander, Judge followed with a fly out to right field. After advancing on Gleyber Torres' single, LeMahieu tried to score on Brett Gardner's hard grounder off Jose Altuve's glove. Correa, however, had swooped in to back up Altuve and fired a strike that got LeMahieu at the plate. ...
It was costly, ending the Yankees' real threat against Verlander, but it was not the only missed chance that inning.
Mike Vaccaro, Post (early edition):
In some ways, the final moment was an inevitability: Carlos Correa taking a big hack at J.A. Happ's first pitch in the bottom of the 11th inning, sending it over the right-field wall, and sending the Astros and Yankees back to New York all tied up at a game apiece following this magnificent 3-2 baseball game.
Really, though, this started in the bottom of the third, when Yankees manager Aaron Boone removed James Paxton, beginning the domino effect of emptying his bullpen. Perhaps this would even be considered overmanaging if this wasn't exactly the way the Yankees have blueprinted these playoffs: Let the pen do the heavy lifting. ...
[But] Boone was forced to start CC Sabathia in the 10th, use three different pitchers in that inning, and rely on Happ for the 11th (and, had things worked out, a few innings more). ...
It was still 2-1 when Boone took one too many trips near the flame in the fifth inning. With one out, he removed Chad Green and inserted Adam Ottavino, and on Ottavino's first pitch, George Springer tied the game at 2-2 with a bomb of his own, to left field. ...
Verlander escaped trouble in the sixth when, with men on first and second and two outs, he induced Brett Gardner to hit a wicked grounder that second baseman Jose Altuve booted. But Correa scrambled to the ball and unleashed a perfect peg home that beat LeMahieu by a couple steps. Verlander would depart to a long ovation with two outs in the seventh.
Astros fans, waving their orange rally towels every time they had the chance, spent the rest of the night looking for one more thing to cheer about. In the 11th, they did.
It is harder to imagine a more perfect postseason baseball game than this one: tense and taut; two teams desperate for victory for different reasons; a howling, baying, pleading crowd that spent much of the night alternating between passing out and raining thunder.
It was more perfect for the Astros, of course. Carlos Correa made it that way in the bottom of the 11th inning, launching the first pitch he saw from J.A. Happ over the right-field wall, an opposite-field blast that gave Houston a 3-2 win ...
Boone will be criticized in certain circles because he pulled James Paxton in the third inning after he'd only gotten seven outs and allowed the Astros to take a 1-0 lead, Correa making the first of three game-changing plays he would collect this night, scoring a run with a double. ...
[The bullpen] wound up blowing up on them Sunday, when they ran out of their top-shelf relievers by the end of regulation, when they needed three pitchers to escape the 10th, when they handed the game over to Happ, who has been exiled from the rotation to a low-leverage bullpen role for a reason. ...
In the top of the 11th, the Yankees returned the favor, got two on with two outs. Josh James engaged in an epic at-bat with Gary Sanchez that included just about everything: a towering pop-up that hit the roof; a swing-and-a-miss for strike three that home-plate umpire Carey Blaser insisted had been foul-tipped (it hadn't); then a borderline call for strike three with which Sanchez took issue.
Five minutes later Happ threw, Correa swung, the ball soared into the right-field bleachers, and an almost perfect game had ended perfectly — for everyone but the nine men in gray walking off the field.
Joel Sherman, Post:
The Yankees won Game 1 and that was as close to vital as openers in a playoff series get. ...
The Yanks were still going to have to win at least one game started by the pitchers who will finish 1-2 in the AL Cy Young voting. Verlander and Cole can start four times in this series and the math is simple — if Houston wins the games they start, it will advance to the World Series for the second time in three years, no matter what occurs in the other three games.
In 2017, the Yankees had to contend with just Verlander and that was too much. ... Now, he has Cole as co-star, co-pilot and co-ace. ...
Meanwhile, Aaron Boone pulled James Paxton after just seven outs, forcing a chain of the Yankee manager's trusted relievers to get through nine innings. The problem was the game went extra innings.
Boone used CC Sabathia, his first outing since Sept. 24, to get one out in the 10th and the Yanks survived Jonathan Loaisiga ... walking the only two men he faced. J.A. Happ — the Yankees' ninth pitcher — escaped that mess. But Carlos Correa homered on the first pitch of the 11th inning. ...
The ALCS is now tied one game apiece. Cole lurks in Game 3.
Game 1 suddenly seemed long ago.
James Paxton had only allowed one run when manager Aaron Boone motioned to the bullpen to summon Chad Green in the bottom of the third in Game 2 of the ALCS.Kristie Ackert, Daily News:
Paxton ... had a succinct reaction when he saw his manager coming to get him: "Crap."
It was Paxton's second straight shaky postseason start. He gave up four hits in 2.1 innings to put the Yankees in a 1-0 hole to the Astros before the bullpen took over ...
The brief outing followed Paxton's playoff debut in the ALDS, when he gave up three runs in 4.2 innings in a Game 1 win over Minnesota.
And it was Paxton's second rough start of the year in Houston, where he allowed five runs in four innings in an April 10 loss. ...
Paxton and Boone were confident he wasn't tipping his pitches on Sunday, though Fox cameras during the game showed Bregman telling his teammates "glove" during the game.
Aroldis Chapman needed 25 pitches to get through the ninth, four shy of his season high, which signaled the end of the Yankees' bullpen script.George A. King III, Post:
So Aaron Boone turned to CC Sabathia, who had been shut down during the ALDS with a shoulder issue. Sabathia got left-handed hitter Michael Brantley to ground out, before the Yankee manager went to Jonathan Loaisiga. The right-hander walked Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman before Boone went to J.A. Happ, who got out of the 10th inning unscathed.
But the converted starter would not get out of the 11th. ...
When James Paxton didn't have command early, Boone pulled him after just 2.1 innings. ...
The lefty just simply could not command his fastball.
The Astros made him work hard. He threw 51 pitches in 2.1 innings work.
Giancarlo Stanton wasn't in the lineup for Game 2 against Cy Young candidate Justin Verlander. ... [He] was held out of the starting lineup with a right quadriceps strain, which was revealed in an MRI exam.Ken Davidoff, Post:
Boone said Stanton suffered the strain running to first base on a second-inning single. ...
If Stanton doesn't respond to treatment and rest, there is a possibility he could be dropped from the ALCS roster and be replaced, possibly by Luke Voit. Should that happen, Stanton wouldn't be eligible to play in the World Series ...
Just when Giancarlo Stanton was changing his pinstriped narrative, he fell back into an old habit.
Not striking out too much. Getting injured too much.
In one sense, it actually served as progress for the $325 million man that his absence from the Yankees' lineup for Sunday night's American League Championship Series Game 2 — due to an ailing right quad — appeared to generate more concern than relief among the team's fan base. ...
It's not a matter of whether he'll hurt the team's vibe with his anxious-looking at-bats, as certainly occurred in last year's AL Division Series loss to the Red Sox. It's how much the Yankees can even count on Stanton over this postseason and the next eight. ...
The Stanton cloud over the Yankees ain't going anywhere. It'll be waiting for you whenever you're ready to talk about it.
2 comments:
Carlos Correa: "As an infielder, I know how tough it is to catch a ball that's a line drive right at you in between. So as soon as I knew that it was going to crash in between, I was creeping over. When it hit [Altuve] and I saw the ball go my way, I just went after it. And I grabbed it and when I looked up and I saw [third-base coach Phil Nevin] was sending the runner, I thought, 'Oh, I got this guy.' So I threw him out. I don't know why [Nevin] sent him, but thank you."
"I don't know why [Nevin] sent him, but thank you."
I agree with him. The stupid announcers all agreed they HAD to send him. A friend of mine is related to Nevin somehow. I should send him a nice fruit basket.
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