Pitching lifts Houston to its first AL pennant
Morton, McCullers combine to limit Yanks to three hits.
HOUSTON — Charlie Morton and Lance McCullers combined on a three-hitter, Jose Altuve and Evan Gattis homered, and the Houston Astros reached the World Series for only the second time, blanking the New York Yankees 4-0 Saturday night in Game 7 of the AL Championship Series.
Just four years removed from their third straight 100-loss season in 2013, the Astros shut down the Yankees on consecutive nights after dropping three in a row in the Bronx.
Next up for the Astros: Game 1 of the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night.
The only previous time the Astros made it this far, they were a National League team when they were swept by the Chicago White Sox in 2005.
Manager A.J. Hinch’s club has a chance to win that elusive first title, while trying to boost a region still recovering from Hurricane Harvey.
Clutch defensive plays by third baseman Alex Bregman and center fielder George Springer helped Houston become the fifth team in major league history to capture a seven-game postseason series by winning all four of its home games.
Morton bounced back from a loss in Game 3 to allow two hits over five scoreless innings. Starter-turned-postseason reliever McCullers limited the Yankees to just one hit while striking out six over the next four.
Combined, they throttled the wild-card Yankees one last time in Houston. Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez and their New York teammates totaled three runs in the four road games.
“I know people are going to talk about how we didn’t win many games on the road. There were some other teams that haven’t won many games on the road, either. We just happened to run into a very good team that just beat us,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.
CC Sabathia entered the game 10-0 with a 1.69 ERA in 13 starts this season after a Yankees loss. But he struggled with command and was gone with one out in the fourth inning.
Houston was up 2-0 in fifth when former Yankees star Brian McCann came through for the second straight game by hitting a two-run double after snapping an 0-for20 skid with an ground-rule RBI double to give Houston its first run on Friday night.
After going 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position through the first three innings, the Astros got on the board with no outs in the fourth with the 405-foot shot by Gattis off Sabathia which made it 1-0.
Altuve launched a ball off Tommy Kahnle into the seats in right field with one out in the fifth for his fifth homer this postseason.
Carlos Correa and Yuli Gurriel hit consecutive singles after that before Kahnle struck out Gattis. McCann’s two-strike double, which rolled into the corner of right field, cleared the bases to push the lead to 4-0.