Yankees beat Verlander to stay alive
James Paxton was filled with nerves, and so were New York Yankees fans, worried the season was slipping away.
Tension only surged when the top of the first featured a little grounder that got away, a passed ball and a runscoring wild pitch.
No worries.
Boom! DJ LeMahieu drove Justin Verlander’s second pitch over the wall to tie the score.
Clang! Aaron Hicks hit a three-run homer off the foul pole later in the inning.
Just like that, the Bronx Bombers were back — in the game, and in this matchup of powerhouses.
A day after a brutal loss, and with little margin for more errors, the Yankees played like a 103-win team. Paxton chilled Houston’s bats and the bullpen followed with shutdown relief to beat the Astros 4-1 Friday night, cutting New York’s AL Championship Series deficit to 3-2.
“I wasn’t ready to go home yet,” Paxton said, “so I wanted to go out and give my team everything I had and just battle away.”
Now the teams rush to Texas, where the series resumes Saturday night without a day off. With pitching plans disrupted by a rainout earlier this week, both teams plan all-bullpen efforts in Game 6. But Gerrit Cole, 19-0 since May, looms as the Astros’ starter on Sunday if New York manages to extend the matchup to the seven-game limit.
“We’ve just got to go back home and finish the job,” Houston’s Carlos Correa said.
Paxton, a fishing aficionado born outside Vancouver in Ladner, British Columbia, wore three-quarter-length sleeves on a night with a game-time temperature of 52 degrees. That was the coldest for a Verlander start since last year’s ALCS opener at Boston, according to STATS — he had on long sleeves and half of Houston’s fielders had hoodies or balaclavas.
After lasting just 2 1/3 innings in Game 2, Paxton struck out nine in six innings, allowing four hits and four walks. Punching his pitching hand into his glove after big strikeouts, he saved his biggest emotion for his 112th and final pitch. Manager Aaron Boone had just made a trip to the mound, unsure whether he would make a change.
“He just said, ‘Are you ready? Do you have anything more left in the tank?”’ Paxton said.
“And I said, ‘Yeah, let’s go. I want this.”’
Robinson Chirinos hit a first-pitch fastball that Brett Gardner caught in front of the left-field scoreboard with a runner on.
Zack Britton struck out two in a perfect eighth, and Aroldis Chapman finished with a 1-2-3 ninth for the save.