Leading Off: Houston Astros
The last time the Yankees beat the Astros, Aaron Hicks was the star. (The Athletic)
It’s the series we’ve been waiting for since October 2019, when Jose Altuve felt his buzzer go off and sent a Chapman slider over the left field wall. The Astros were headed to the World Series and the Yankees, who had just engineered a comeback of their own via a DJ LeMahieu game tying home run, were going home. Since then, the full story of the Astros cheating scandal has come to light and the baseball world has summarily cast them out as the pariahs of the sport. Now, the Bronx faithful get to levy their own judgement upon these black sheeps of baseball. Yes, the Astros enter the Bronx for the first time since Game 5 of the 2019 ALCS and they find a team hot off a sweep of the Detroit Tigers. This is the series that has been anticipated by so many for months. Will it live up to the hype? Let’s ask Aaron Judge about it.
The 2021 Astros So Far
The Astros have not gotten off to a much better start than the Yankees this year. While the Yankees sit at 14-14, the Astros are one game better at 15-13. They are third in the AL West, 1.5 games behind the Oakland Athletics. Houston has had their ups (sweeping the A’s, winning three of four against the Angels and Mariners) and their downs (getting swept by the Tigers and Rockies, who are the two worst teams in baseball, in case you forgot the past three games). Their offense is still the high powered beast that you remember from years past, featuring star performances from Yuli Gurriel, Yordan Alvarez, Carlos Correa and Alex Bregman, who are all OPSing above .800. However, Jose Altuve is barely hitting these days. Tough to see.
On the pitching side, Houston has gotten off to a strong start, ranking fourth in the American League with a 3.69 ERA. Zack Greinke is the ace of the staff and he’s posted his usual solid numbers. He’s backed up by Lance McCullers and a bunch of guys you haven’t heard of but are actually pretty good. We’ll get into it more during the pitching matchup preview. Jake Odorizzi of Twins and Rays fame is also on the staff but currently injured and thus will not be starting this series. This isn’t the Verlander-Greinke-Cole triumvirate - and seriously, how did that group not win a World Series - but they can still hold their own against most American League offenses. Except, notably, the Detroit Tigers.
Pitching Matchups
Tuesday: Zack Greinke vs. Domingo German
Justin Verlander may be injured and Gerrit Cole may be a Yankee, but the Astros still retain one of their aces. Greinke is in his age 37 season and is a likely Hall of Famer at this point. Incredibly, he’s shown no signs of slowing down. In the last five years, he’s pitched to a 3.21 ERA, which is better than his career average of 3.37. Greinke succeeds through throwing a hell of a lot of pitches (eight different ones, according to StatCast) and maintaining an above average velocity to combine with a wealth of pitching knowledge, which he’s used to fool hitters for years. The Yankees are very familiar with Greinke from his days in Kansas City and they’ve generally handled him well - he’s 4-4 with a 5.05 ERA against them in his career. The last time Greinke faced the Yankees was the 2019 ALCS, and he was taken yard by Stanton and Torres in Game 1 for the loss. He also started Game 4 and gave up only one run in 4 and 1/3 innings, but it’s more fun to watch Giancarlo Stanton hit a dinger off of him, isn’t it?
For New York, Domingo German will take the bump. He’s pitched much better since being recalled from the Alternate Site, coming off seven scoreless innings against Baltimore in his last start. He has faced Houston three times in his career, posting a 3.86 ERA against them. Domingo was sharp in his last outing and will need to be able to locate his breaking pitches with the same effectiveness that he did against Baltimore to have success against a much better Astros lineup.
Wednesday: Luis Garcia vs. Jordan Montgomery
The one Astros starter that Yankee fans will not be familiar with this series, Garcia made his MLB debut last September after signing with the Astros as an international free agent in 2017. He is 0-4 in his career with a 2.78 ERA and has only started two regular season games ever. Right now, he’s filling in for Jake Odorizzi while Odorizzi battles right forearm tightness. Garcia is being brought into a situation which he had no part of and I ask that Yankees fans spare him the same wrath that I am hoping they will inflict upon Altuve, Correa and Bregman. Garcia is just a child and shouldn’t have to stand trial for his team’s injustices (although scoring a few runs off the 24 year old rookie wouldn’t be the worst punishment in the world). Jordan Montgomery will start for New York, coming off a no decision in Baltimore. Montgomery has pitched to a 4.39 ERA thus far, combining great games with average ones. He has not done well against the Astros in his career (5.50 ERA) and left his last start against them in 2018 with the elbow injury that would sideline him for most of the next two years. Here’s hoping for a better outcome this time.
Thursday: Lance McCullers Jr. vs. Gerrit Cole
The Yankees draw McCullers for the final game of the series, who has become a certified Yankee Killer based on his appearances against them from 2016-2018. McCullers has a career 2.59 ERA against the Yankees and most notably sent them home in Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS when he snapped off curveball after curveball to baffle the hitters (Side note: the Astros cheated that year). McCullers missed all of 2019 after Tommy John surgery, but has returned to post a 3.75 ERA for Houston over the last two years. McCullers loves his curveball and the Yankees have not done well against breaking pitches this year, so this could be a tough assignment for them. Fortunately, they have their ace on the mound for this one - Gerrit Cole will pitch against his former team for the first time. Game 3 of the 2019 ALCS was the last time Cole and the Astros were both at Yankee Stadium, but now the tables have turned on the Astros. Cole had a dominant start Friday against Detroit and is on a Gerrit Cole like run right now (that’s how good he’s been). You know that he’s ready to take down the cheaters. You just know it. Cole has only faced the Astros once, in 2016, and gave up five runs in five innings, but that was before he was Gerrit Cole. Expect another stellar performance from the Cole Train.
Bullpen Breakdown
The Astros have a league average bullpen, ranking 13th in baseball thus far. They’re getting it done with a group of names that are not the ones baseball fans are familiar with. Gone are the days of Ken Giles, Roberto Osuna and Will Harris (he writes for this blog now). Ryan Pressly anchors the back end of the pen and is surrounded by names such as Bryan Abreu, Ryne Stanek, and Joe Smith. The Astros pen blew Sunday’s game against the Rays but benefited from a long outing by Lance McCullers and yesterday’s off day to enter Yankee Stadium well rested.
The Yankees will bring a similarly rested bullpen into this matchup. The combination of the off day and Corey Kluber’s masterpiece on Sunday means that Aroldis Chapman is the only pitcher who will not have two full days of rest before tonight’s game. This will be important, as the Astros lineup can knock a pitcher out of a game at any moment. It will truly be an all hands on deck series.
Yankees vs. Astros History
We described a lot of the history yesterday, but just to recap - these teams have faced each other three times in the postseason in the last seven years, with the Yankees losing each time. Plus the Astros cheated for probably all of these games. No further history needed.
Thoughts Before the Series
This is the marquee series of the week and the Yankees fans are going to come ready to heckle and boo tonight. All season, the Astros have been verbally accosted by fans across the league who are angry about the cheating scandal. No team has more right to be angry than the Yankees (perhaps the Dodgers, but they won the World Series, so they definitely don’t care as much anymore). They were knocked out of three separate Octobers by a team that broke the rules to do so. The two most fun Yankees teams of the last decade were sent home by a team that couldn’t play by the same standards as everyone else in the league. Aaron Judge was robbed of an MVP award by a man who needed to listen to the sound of banging trash cans to know what pitches were coming. You get the idea. Yankees fans are already anxious for a title, as evidenced by their voiced displeasure during the Tampa series, and they will be ready to let the Astros have it tonight and for the next three days. I for one am excited to see what combination of creative insults and mean spirited taunting the Bronx faithful come up with. It will also be interesting to see if there is any ill will between the players. This series is not lacking for intrigue.
In our recap from the weekend series sweep, we discussed the exemplary play of Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole, Aroldis Chapman and Corey Kluber. The Yankees have had so many star players, we didn’t even get a chance to mention Giancarlo Stanton. After getting off to an abysmal start to the year, Stanton has been on fire in the last two weeks. In his first 10 games of the season, Giancarlo batted .175/.233/.275 with 11 strikeouts in 43 plate appearances and heard boos in almost every at bat. Since then, he has been unstoppable. In his last 14 games, Stanton has hit .339/.383/.643 and is currently carrying a nine game hitting streak. He has hit the ball exceedingly hard every time up and when he makes an out, it’s mostly because he hit the ball right at a fielder. A healthy (he’s already played more games this year than in both 2019 and 2020) and hot Giancarlo Stanton adds another dimension to this lineup and him and Judge both hitting at the same time is a scary sight for pitchers. If we can get anything close to 2020 Playoff Stanton for a full season, well - I feel sorry for the baseballs.
Fun fact - the Yankees have not played a team with a record above .500 this season. They have spent the last two weeks playing below average teams and doing what they needed to in order to right the ship. Now, Houston comes into town as the first real test for this Yankees team since the Tampa series. It’s all well and good to hit home runs and shut out the Orioles and Tigers, but if this Yankees team wants to make waves in October, they’ll have to beat teams that are of the Astros’ caliber. If the Yankees can win this series, they will be above .500 and will prove that they’re a team to be reckoned with. The game plan is the same (hit home runs and balance good starting pitching with a dominant bullpen), but the execution will be more difficult. It will be up to the Yankees if they can make a statement this week. Championship seasons have to start somewhere and with an even record and only a 2.5 game deficit in the division, the season starts today.
That’s all for the preview - now the fun begins! Game time is 7:05 tonight and you can bet that Yankee Stadium will be loud, even at 25% capacity. Time to let the Astros know how much they’re hated in the Bronx. We left you with the Gary double in 2017 yesterday, so let’s end on another highlight from Yankees-Astros recent history. Take it away, Aaron.
