Severino keeps bats slumbering
Stanton shakes his doldrums with pair of HRs off Keuchel
A line drive flared into the windy night under an open roof. Consecutive singles preceded this, an exotic sight amid such a wretched stretch. The Astros trailed by three runs but placed the first two men aboard in the seventh inning.
Alex Bregman’s line drive sailed past second base, from which Yuli Gurriel cautiously departed. Gleyber Torres extended his body and reached out his left hand. The baseball fell into the glove of the wunderkind prospect. It exited Bregman’s bat at 69 mph, and Statcast calculated it carried a 72 percent hit probability.
Now it was nothing more than an out, the beginning of another unfulfilled rally in a series becoming overrun with them. The crowd’s applause ceased, and life escaped a ballpark in which the home team refuses to hit.
The Astros entered Wednes-
day evening slashing .230/.305/ .368 inside Minute Maid Park. Mustering five hits in a second consecutive shutout loss to the Yankees — a 4-0 showing on Wednesday — escalated their misery.
They have not scored a run in 22 innings. Gifted a reprieve on Tuesday, when Yankees starter Jordan Montgomery exited the game after one inning, they mustered six hits. At-bats were “less than ideal,” manager A.J. Hinch said.
Against Luis Severino a day later, there was little room to exhale.
Severino spun a shutout, something no individual did against the Astros last season. He required 110 pitches and struck out a season-high 10 hitters, a feat just two men accomplished against Houston last year.
“He was legit, man,” Bregman said.
Before Josh Reddick lined a two-out double in the ninth inning, only one runner reached scoring position against Severino.
The Astros swung and missed 17 times and took 23 other strikes, befuddled by an array of four-seam fastballs that hovered from 97-99 mph and aptly timed changeups. Severino became the first Yankee to strike out 10 or more in a shutout since Mike Mussina in 2002.
“The night was about Severino, obviously,” Hinch said. “He completely dominated the night. We didn’t have an answer for him. We put a little bit of stress on them in the seventh, but other than that, he was dialed in.”
The way Severino operated — and the way his opponents swung — did not require much run support. One man could provide it.
And Giancarlo Stanton did, a return to form for the reigning National League Most Valuable Player, who haunts the middle of the Yankees’ lineup. Before Wednesday, none of his previous 10 at-bats produced a hit. Just three of his 20 on this road trip did so. Astros starter Dallas Keuchel seemed the worst matchup to remedy it.
No Yankee had ever hit a home run off Keuchel. Few even produced substantial contact. Since 2014, Keuchel has executed mastery against this franchise, pitching his club to victory against it in some of the Astros’ most watershed moments.
The 2015 wild-card game contained six innings of scoreless ball. Game 1 of last season’s American League Championship Series produced seven such frames.
In his six regular-season starts against the Yankees preceding this one — spanning 442⁄3 innings — Keuchel allowed seven earned runs.
Three were on his line by the third inning, a consequence of Stanton’s emergence from the kind of strikeout-filled slump that so often befalls him. In each of Stanton’s first two at-bats against him, Keuchel trailed 2-0 in the count before ceding a home run to the cleanup-hitting slugger.
Neither of the two pitches was grossly mislocated, but a man of Stanton’s size, strength and prowess does not require blatant mistakes to display his talent. Keuchel spotted a sinker on the outer half with two out and a man on in the first inning. Stanton deposited it to the opposite field.
In the fourth inning, Keuchel came inside. A 2-2 slider tailed in near Stanton’s waist. It exited his bat at 108 mph and landed in the Crawford Boxes.
“We’re going through one of those phases where we don’t get a break, don’t get another break,” Keuchel said. “That was all it took. Disappointing, but at the same time we’re right there. It’s not like we’re getting blown out or anything, and we’ll come ready to play tomorrow.”
Stanton’s eighth-inning RBI double was lagniappe, a fourth run of support for Severino, who hardly needed it. The malaise an inning earlier, when Bregman had a hit stolen, ensured it.
Two chances remained in that frame, the Astros’ lone semblance of pressure against Severino. Unsurprisingly, they were wasted. Marwin Gonzalez struck out, his fourth punchout this series with a runner on base.
Brian McCann was summoned to pinch-hit. A ground ball deep in the four-hole was hit. Tyler Austin stabbed it. Severino raced over, easily beating the Astros’ 34-year-old catcher, who was scheduled to have this evening off.
Severino caught the baseball and slapped his glove in delight.
“Sometimes you have to tip your cap,” Jose Altuve said. “And today is one of those games.”