The Houston Astros defeated the New York Yankees 4-2 in the first game of the American League Championship Series on Wednesday night. The Astros lead the best-of-seven series 1-0, meaning they are three games away from punching a ticket to the World Series for the fourth time since 2017.
The Astros fell behind in the second inning as Harrison Bader hit his fourth home run in his sixth postseason game this fall, blasting a solo shot off Justin Verlander. Houston would tie things up in the bottom half of the inning. Backstop Martín Maldonado hit an opposite field double that scored Chas McCormick.
The two sides would trade zeroes until the sixth inning. That’s when first baseman Yuli Gurriel hit a home run to left field to put Houston up 2-1. The aforementioned McCormick would hit his own solo home run a couple batters later, extending the lead to 3-1. Another home run, this time by Jeremy Peña in the seventh, made it 4-1.
The Yankees would score a run in the eighth on a solo shot by Anthony Rizzo, cutting the lead to 4-2. The Yankees would threaten even more in the eighth, tying the game in the first with two outs. The score remained tied until the final out, however, sealing the deal for the Astros.
Here are six things you need to know about the Astros’ Game 1 win.
1. Verlander throws gem, makes history
The Astros owe much of their victory to ace Justin Verlander. The AL Cy Young Award favorite struggled in his first start this postseason against the Seattle Mariners. He course-corrected Wednesday, holding the Yankees to one run in six innings of work. Verlander gave up three hits, one walk and one hit by pitch, striking out 11 batters in 103 pitches.
As ESPN Stats and Info noted, Verlander became the all-time postseason leader in strikeouts, passing Dodgers lefty Clayton Kershaw earlier in the night:
Verlander’s 11 walks tied for the second-most in a single postseason game. His career high remains the 13 he hit against the Yankees in the 2017 ALCS. This is the fifth time he’s put up 11 runs, and the second time he’s done it against New York. (To be fair, Verlander has now made nine postseason starts against the Yankees, giving him ample opportunity to accomplish the feat.)
Verlander threw three pitches 20+ times Wednesday: his fastball, slider and curveball. He generated a game-high 17 swinging strikes, generating at least four on each of those three pitches, and eight on his slider alone.
In so many words, Verlander didn’t look like someone who would have authored the worst postseason start of his career last time out.
2. Taillon keeps the Yankees in the game
Yankees right-hander Jameson Taillon did not have a Verlander-like performance by any means. However, he kept the game close, and that meant he exceeded the modest expectations he had of the Astros’ lineup.
Taillon pitched 4 1/3 innings, giving up one run on four hits and three walks. He didn’t hit anyone in 67 pitches. Taillon’s line almost looked worse as manager Aaron Boone pulled him in the fifth after he surrendered a double. Reliever Clarke Schmidt, who would eventually hit two home runs, loaded the bases with back-to-back walks (one intentional) before delivering a pivotal double play ball.
Regardless of what happened to Schmidt in the later innings, the Yankees likely would have targeted Taillon facing 20 batters and coming away with a tied score.
3. The Astros get home runs from unlikely sources
When people think of big power threats in the Astros lineup, they think of Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Tucker and maybe even Jose Altuve or Alex Bregman. They probably don’t think about the three who threw solo shots in Game 1: Gurriel, McCormick and Peña. This is for good reason.
In fact, Gurriel finished the regular season with eight home runs in 584 trips to the plate, or one every 73 plate appearances. McCormick and Peña were much better in that regard, hitting home runs about every 25-29 trips to the plate.
What’s more, Gurriel had been in the middle of a long power drought heading into the playoffs. After hitting his seventh home run of the year on July 1, he homered once more over his final 76 games. Naturally, Gurriel has hit two home runs in his first four playoff games, proving you can’t predict baseball.
4. The judge makes a huge catch
It didn’t end up mattering, not really, but Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge made arguably his best catch of the season from a statistical perspective early on. Bregman hit a ball to right, right-center with two runners on base and one out. It looked like Bregman would have extra bases, but Judge laid down and caught.
You can click here to read what made the capture so rare and special.
5. What the story says about winning game 1
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but winning Game 1 usually bodes well for the victor’s chances of winning the entire series. According to the website WhoWins.com, Major League Baseball clubs that have won the first game of a best-of-seven series have historically won 64.3 percent of those series.
6. What happens next
The Yankees and Astros will continue the ALCS with Game 2 on Thursday night. The Yankees are expected to start Luis Severino while the Astros sign Framber Valdez. First pitch is set for 7:37 PM ET and the game will air on TBS. The Astros will look to build a 2-0 lead in the series.