Road show strikes out

So this was a Yankee season that ended the way a World Series ended for them in Phoenix, Ariz., one time, a long time ago. The Yankees won three games in the middle of the 2001 Series that will always be remembered in New York, because of the stirring way in which they won them, in the shadow of Sept. 11. But it turned out that those Yankees, Torre’s Yankees, left that World Series and that season in New York, and at the Stadium. The Diamondbacks beat them up in Game 6 and then beat them in Game 7 when a starting pitcher – Randy Johnson – came out of the bullpen to get the last outs.

This series was different, of course, all this time later. That Series in ’01 was the symbolic end of greatness for Torre’s Yankees. This season is supposed to be the beginning of greatness, and perhaps lasting greatness, for Aaron Judge and so many other Yankees. But this one ends short of the Series because what happened to the Yankees in Houston in this ALCS is what happened to them in Phoenix 16 years ago: They did not hit. The Yankees scored five runs in four games on the road in the ’01 World Series. The Yankees scored three runs in four games in Houston in this American League Championship Series. For all the talk about the Yankee bullpen, across this regular season and across this postseason, they ended up being gassed by a couple of starting pitchers with big arms and big fastballs in Game 7: Charlie Morton, and a starter out of the pen named Lance McCullers Jr.

Morton threw so many fastballs for strikes across the first five innings you lost count. Then McCullers, who had pitched so brilliantly in Game 4 as a starter before his bullpen betrayed him, became a oneman Astros bullpen at Minute Maid Park in Game 7. Morton gave the Yankees two hits and struck out five. McCullers was even better, striking out six in four innings and giving the Yankees one hit. After all the big home run swings from Aaron Judge and the rest of the Yankees, after the way they had performed so brilliantly in one-game seasons against the Twins and the Indians, you were reminded of something on Saturday night in their last one-game season in Houston: In a game like this, you are as helpless against big, star pitching as you are against a hot goalie in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Yankees started CC Sabathia, who was going on guile and heart and a formidable October resume. The Astros went with heat. They go to the World Series and the Yankees go home. The Yankees could do little with the great Justin Verlander on Friday night. They could do nothing on Saturday night against the firm of Morton and McCullers. They had so much momentum going for them after winning three straight at the new Yankee Stadium. Verlander stopped it all in Game 6. Morton and McCullers did the same on Saturday night. The Yankees came back to Houston and scored one run in two games. Todd Frazier’s ball didn’t go out in Game 6. It was McCann who made the biggest swing on this night. It was McCann who finished off that play at the plate, catching and tagging and getting the out and remembering the play at the end of Game 2 when Gary Sanchez could not do the same. All season long in Houston, and especially after the Verlander trade, the Astros were sure this was their season to go to the World Series. Then it looked like the Yankees’ season. Only the Yankees left it at home. They go home.