New faces enter the fray
LeMahieu, Torres among those not around when Yankees faced Astros in 2017
DJ LeMahieu had a decent seat for the American League Championship Series two years ago between the Astros and New York Yankees, after his team at the time, the Colorado Rockies, lost in the National League wildcard game.
“Home on the couch,” LeMahieu recalled Sunday night with a smile of settling in front of the screen after a long season.
In 2017, the Astros defeated the Yankees in seven games in the ACLS and advanced to their second World Series.
“I know I watched it, I just don’t remember much of it,” LeMahieu said with a shrug. “I just know it went back and forth at the time.”
His view this season is much better two games into the ALCS: from the visitors’ dugout, Minute Maid Park first base and most importantly early in the series, from the batter’s box.
“I’ve been kind of through every situation now,” said LeMahieu, 31, prior to Sunday night’s Game 2. “I’ve had a lot of failures, I’ve had a lot of great moments. All that combines maybe into the player I am, and hopefully I keep getting better.”
The Astros believe his view — along with a handful of other new or relatively new Yankees — has been too sharp so far in the batter’s box. LeMahieu is one of a handful of impactful Yankees who weren’t around two years ago when the Astros took down baseball’s most storied franchise.
Gleyber Torres, Gio Urshela, Giancarlo Stanton and LeMahieu, along with manager Aaron Boone, all were in different locales at this time two years ago — and all played a role in the Yankees snatching home-field advantage from the Astros following the opening game.
Torres collected a game-high three hits and five RBIs. LeMahieu had two hits and scored three runs. Stanton and Urshela each chipped in two hits as the Astros’ trotted out five pitchers, and Stanton and Urshela each added an RBI in the Yankees’ 7-0 victory in Game 1.
“I just go to home plate believing in what I can do,” said Torres, who at 22 became the youngest player in AL history to have five RBIs in a playoff game. “Each opportunity I get, I just believe in myself.”
Torres became a member of the Yankees organization three years ago in a trade with the Chicago Cubs that, at the time, sent current Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs. Torres made his big league debut in April 2018.
“He’s very relaxed and confident,” LeMahieu said of his wet-behind-the-earholes teammate. “He’s got his ‘power swing’ and he’s got his ‘put the ball in play’ swing. For a 22-year-old to have two approaches and to know when to use both, it’s impressive.”
Stanton, 29, easily was the most high-profile of the Yankees’ acquisitions since the 2017 ALCS, but he injured a quadricep running to first base in Game 1 of the ALCS and Boone labeled him as a potential pinch hitter for Game 2.
A little more than a year ago the Toronto Blue Jays traded Urshela, 28, to the Yankees for cash. Urshela led off the ninth inning Saturday with a solo home run, to add a final shake of salt on the Astros’ already open and salty wound in losing home-field advantage.
LeMahieu last January inked a twoyear deal with the Yankees after spending the past decade with the Cubs and mostly the Rockies. This marks only his third postseason appearance in that span, and his three runs scored Saturday marked a personal best in the postseason.
“Experience has been the biggest thing for me in growing as a major league player,” LeMahieu said. “Physically, I feel pretty much the same as I have my whole career, but it’s experience that has set me apart this year — it’s made me a lot better.”
As for Boone, a former big leaguer who had a late stint with the Astros, he came out of the ESPN Radio booth in December 2017 to take over a fabled franchise that owns a baseball-best 27 World Series titles.
The Boston Red Sox defeated the Yankees a year ago in the AL Division Series, and so facing his old ballclub in the ALCS is the furthest Boone has advanced to date in the postseason as manager.
“(The Astros) certainly have kind of established themselves as the class of this league the last few years,” Boone said. “Hopefully we can ding it a little bit.”