The Houston Astros might not have had many players with postseason experience on their roster. But they were not intimidated at all under the bright lights of Yankee Stadium in the team's first postseason game since 2005. The Astros won 3-0 over the New York Yankees to advance to the ALDS against the Kansas City Royals.
Road teams have had little fear factor in their wild-card appearances. They are now 5-2 all time in wild-card games.
Keuchel untouchable
Pitching on three days' rest, Dallas Keuchel threw six scoreless innings, allowing three hits and striking out seven. Combining the regular season and postseason, he’s thrown 22 scoreless innings against the Yankees this season. Dating back to last season, he’s thrown 28 straight scoreless innings against them.
Keuchel was the first pitcher to throw six scoreless innings against the Yankees in his postseason debut since Max Scherzer did for the Tigers in 2011.
He’s the first starter to throw a scoreless postseason start on three days' rest since Josh Beckett did it to clinch the 2003 World Series for the Marlins in Yankee Stadium.
It’s the fifth postseason shutout in Astros history, the first since Game 5 of the 2004 NLCS against the Cardinals. All four of the other shutouts were thrown at home.
It’s the third shutout win against the Yankees in a winner-take-all postseason game. The other two were by the 1955 Dodgers and 1957 Braves in Game 7 of the World Series.
Home runs get the Astros going
The Astros got home runs from Colby Rasmus in the second inning and Carlos Gomez in the fourth inning. Both homers came on the first pitch of the at-bat against Masahiro Tanaka. The Astros swung at first pitches more often than any team in the American League this season. Gomez ranked third among individual players in first-pitch swing rate.
Rasmus closed the regular season hot, going 7-for-14 with three homers in his last four games. The home run Tuesday made him 5-for-10 in the postseason for his career. He has a career batting average of .179 against the Yankees, third-worst among active players (minimum 100 at-bats).
Gomez’s home run came out of the No. 6 spot in the lineup. The Astros slid Gomez into that slot late in the season, and it paid off with a .346 batting average, three doubles and a home run in seven games. It paid off again on Tuesday.
The Astros went 57-11 in the regular season in games in which they hit multiple home runs. That was the best record in the major leagues.
A-Rod fails to come through
Alex Rodriguez went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. His hardest-hit ball was a line drive down the right-field line that was caught by George Springer. Rodriguez is hitless in his past 19 postseason at-bats with runners in scoring position after going 0-for-2 in this game.
Rodriguez is hitting .156 with runners in scoring position in his postseason career. That ranks sixth among players with at least 35 such postseason at-bats, fourth among active players (Nick Swisher, Jimmy Rollins and Mark Teixeira have the three lowest).
Gardner over Ellsbury doesn’t work out
The discussion before the game was on whether Joe Girardi’s decision to start Brett Gardner over Jacoby Ellsbury would pay off. It didn’t.
Keuchel struck Gardner out three times, including twice on pitches that were well out of the strike zone (both sliders). Gardner struck out multiple times in each of his past four games this season. His previous three-strikeout game was against the Astros on Aug. 26.
Did you know?
Keuchel became the fifth pitcher in postseason history to do the following:
- Win a game on the road to clinch a series
- Pitch at least six scoreless innings
- Allow three hits or fewer
- Strike out seven or more
We wouldn’t normally attach that many qualifiers, but it’s a fun list. The other pitchers to do that are Orval Overall (1908 Cubs), Sandy Koufax (1965 Dodgers), Pedro Martinez (in relief for the 1999 Red Sox) and Justin Verlander (2013 Tigers).