Keuchel will face Yankees on short rest in wild card

Houston’s ace won both of his starts against New York, without allowing a run

It is not as if Dallas Keuchel is unfamiliar with pitching on less than full rest. He said he has done it before in a big spot. Well, “big” is a relative term. It happened in the 2009 College World Series, when he was at Arkansas.

This is bigger: The Astros will send their ace to the mound Tuesday night against the Yankees on three days’ rest for the American League wild-card game at Yankee Stadium. Any concerns? “It’s just something that’s going to need to be done,” Keuchel said before Houston’s workout Monday. “Whether or not I feel good when the game starts, it’s going to be up to me to start the game and help the team win.”

Keuchel’s manager, A.J. Hinch, expressed no doubts about his star’s ability to handle the unusual assignment.

“He’s our ace,” Hinch said. “He’s our guy. So to hand him the ball with the season on the line — pretty awesome.”

Hinch said the focus on pitch counts and pitchers’ rest in recent years has become “a bigger deal than maybe it really is. I think in this stage, adrenalin is going to carry them a long way . . . Physically, he’s fine. It’s just a little bit of a different routine.”

Keuchel did pitch Friday against the Diamondbacks. He gave up two runs and six hits in six innings in a 21-5 victory that improved his record to 20-8.

He finished the regular season with an ERA of 2.48.

The 27-year-old has been much tougher at home than on the road, where he was 5-8 with a 3.77 ERA. But he was 2-0 against the Yankees — one win at home and one in the Bronx — with no runs allowed in 16 innings.

Major League Baseball managed to cut six minutes from the average time of a nine-inning game this season. STATS said Monday that the season average ended at 2 hours, 56 minutes. But while the average dropped to 2:53 in the first half of the season, it was back at 3:00 after the all-star break. MLB and the players’ association agreed this year to enforce the rule requiring a hitter to keep at least one foot in the batter’s box in many cases, and they also agreed to post stadium clocks timing pitching changes and between-inning breaks.

Manager Matt Williams was fired by the Washington Nationals on Monday after a season in which the team went from World Series favourite to failing to make the playoffs. The club announced the move a day after finishing the regular season barely above .500 at 83-79, second to the New York Mets in the NL East. Williams is gone after only two seasons in his first job as a skipper in the majors. He was voted NL Manager of the Year after the Nationals finished with the best record in the league in 2014.