Astros show why they’re the champs
HOUSTON — The American League pennant still runs through this newly minted baseball town. The Yankees probably didn’t need to see the Astros firsthand to know that reality. Yet this 2018 rivalry opener Monday night at Minute Maid Park, the first meeting of these two powers since last year’s intense AL Championship Series, carried symbolic meaning, if no other kind. The Yankees’ 2-1 loss to the ’Stros in this well-played affair served as a friendly reminder.
For Aaron Boone’s group rode here on the tailwind of a nine-game winning streak. And it left here with that streak stopped, with an 18-10 record overall — trailing the Astros’ 20-10 by two games in the win column.
“I appreciated them last year [as a broadcaster]. Now I just want to beat them,” Boone said afterward. “They’re really good, obviously. They’re athletic. Obviously great starting pitching, which was evident tonight. They’re a handful, obviously. Those guys, especially at the top of the order, can be tough.
“But you also look forward to these games and this type of competition.”
Curveball artist Charlie Morton, who defeated the Yankees in Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS, picked up where he left off and then some, twirling a no-hitter until Austin Romine’s single with one out in the sixth and going 7 2/3 innings overall while allowing just one run and striking out 10. The Houston bullpen wobbled yet didn’t fall down, escaping a hairy jam in the eighth.
And that ensured the Yankees would settle for the moral victory of Sonny Gray, who has started the Yankees’ only two losses in their last 11 games, registering his best start of the season by limiting the dangerous Astros offense to two runs over six innings.
“I’ve been asked about it about eight times in the last two days: Last year is over and done with,” the media-friendly Brett Gardner said with a smile. “This year is a new year. Obviously they’ve got a really, really good team. I feel like we do too.”
It still rattles the sense a little that the Yankees are in many ways following the Astros’ blueprint for success. Facts, however, are facts.
“This is what’s turned into a really fun rivalry,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said before the game. “We’ve played important games against them over the last few seasons, and we kind of mirror each other in the sense that our best players are young players. There have been some additions of veteran players to try to complement the teams. We’re both winning a lot of games. It’s a fun series early in the season to play against one of the best teams.”
As defending champions, the Astros own the current intellectual high ground, and they’re backing it in the early going. Their young core of reigning AL Most Valuable Player Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, George Springer and Alex Bregman has raked, as has veteran (and old Yankee friend) Brian McCann, and new guy Gerrit Cole, whom the Yankees pursued in trade talks with the Pirates, has excelled on the mound; the right-hander will miss this series after pitching on Sunday.
The Yankees, meanwhile, have reaped the benefits of adding youngsters Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres, the latter of whom provided an eighth-inning double for the Yankees’ only extra-base hit. Their big-name import, Giancarlo Stanton, struck out three times and has an unimpressive .230/.313/.425 slash line.
And in Boone, the Yankees hope they have their version of Hinch, a younger communicator who arrived here via an unconventional route.
“I have a lot of respect for him,” Hinch said of Boone. “I think his demeanor is showing well in an incredibly intense environment. Obviously, the players have responded to him, and he’s doing some pretty good things.”
Asked how much attention he pays to his former club, McCann said, “A lot of attention. They’re a great team. The additions they’ve made, they definitely got better.”
Better than the Astros? We’ll probably require the whole season to find out. The Astros landed the first punch, and that’s not nothing.