ONE TO GO!
Tanaka shuts down reeling Astros to put Yanks on brink of World Series
Yankees pitcher Masahiro Tanaka exults after ending fifth inning with a strikeout — one of his eight in Game 5 — and the Bombers clubbed the Astros for third straight night to win 5-0 at the Stadium on Wednesday. Yanks can clinch first World Series birth since 2009 in Houston on Friday.
It was only the bottom of the third but the new place once again sounded like the old place. Again. Aaron Judge, who has made the most noise for these Yankees and is now hearing some of the October noise that Jeter and them once heard on the other side of 161st St., had hit a double into the left field corner and scored Brett Gardner to make it 2-0 in Game 5. This was another collision between the force of the kid’s tal- ent and the sudden throaty force of the place, which has come alive the way it has over the last two weeks. All part of the rising of the Yankees. In the early innings it had already gotten quite real that by the end of this game and this night the Yankees might be a win away from the World Series.
The last time they had been this close to the Series was the last time they were in it, October 2009. But now they had come back from 0-2 down against the Astros and their 101 wins the way they had come from 0-2 behind the Indians, who won 102 this season. And this Yankee team, an October surprise as much as the Yankees of 1996 were a surprise, when the ’96 Yankees were the ones ahead of schedule, was doing what Yankee fans and the new Stadium had waited for, for such a long time: Making the Yankees the Yankees again.
“Maybe,” a Yankee fan walking down from behind Sec. 224 said after Judge’s hit had scored Gardner, “they’re too young
to know how much trouble they were in.” Now it was the Astros, who once led 2-0 in this American League Championship Series after two 2-1 wins, who were in big trouble, even with Dallas Keuchel, who has owned the Yankees at this time of year, on the mound. Judge, one of the great Yankee kids, got him in the third and Gary Sanchez hit a double where Judge had hit one in the fifth to make it 3-0. The place rose up again then, part of the rising of this season and especially this baseball October, so much of it built around Aaron (All Rise) Judge. Finally it was the top of the 9th now at the new Stadium, and the Yankees were an out away from finally getting ahead of the Astros by a game, and getting themselves to within one more win of the World Series. They knew Justin Verlander would be waiting for them in Houston. But they had gotten by Keuchel on this day and night. Masahiro Tanaka had been better, and by a lot. The Yankees had been better, and by a lot, for three straight games at the Stadium. There hasn’t been a week like this since the last time they won it all. There haven’t been baseball nights like this since the last time they won it all. This wasn’t about the way things once were on 161st. This was, the place at the top of its voice, about the way things are. “So cool,” Paul O’Neill said in the middle of Game 5. “I’m a big fan of this team.” Yeah. At last it was the 9th. Tanaka’s dominance had quieted them for a few innings, the way the big lead had. But now they were close, their team about to take three straight off 101 wins. Same as they’d taken three straight off 102. They had been losing 4-0 in Game 4. Scored the last six runs of that game. Then they scored the first four of Game 5. Then the first five. By the time it was 5-0, which is how it would end, the Yankees had outscored the Astros 19-5 in New York. Had scored the last 11 runs of the ALCS. Rolled that kind of 11. This is the way tourists used to get rolled in the big bad city before the crime rate went down.
“This series isn’t over,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “This game is over.” Before it the other manager in the game, Joe Girardi said, “Even when we were down we believed in ourselves.”
Now they have pitched themselves and hit themselves and believed themselves into being a win away from the World Series, once as much a part of the permanent geography of the Bronx as the Bronx County Courthouse. RBI from Greg Bird, whose home run saved the season in Game 3 against the Indians. RBI from Judge, and Sanchez, and Didi Gregorius, a shortstop doing big things for the Yankees in the postseason, as if that is still part of the job description for that position at Yankee Stadium. Then Sanchez launched one to left in the bottom of the seventh to blow the doors off the place again.
“Everybody chipped in tonight,” Bird said, but everybody has been chipping in since the Wild Card game against the Twins.”
Tommy Kahnle was on the mound to finish things off. Altuve, the MVP of the league but not the week in New York, hit a fly ball to Aaron Hicks in center. One out. Carlos Correa doubled up the gap in right center, hardest hit the Astros had for all of Game 5. Yuli Gurriel grounded out to Gregorius. The place got up one last time. All Rise. Alex Bregman lined out to Hicks. Yankees 5-0 in Game 5.
They try to get Verlander in Houston on Friday night the way they got Keuchel, at last. One win away from the Series. Suddenly, in all the right ways, in this loud way, the good old days are now for the New York Yankees. Like the Boss said one time, and not Boss
Steinbrenner: Come on up for the rising.