Astros score six in ninth, walk off over Yankees on Altuve HR.
Altuve’s ‘miracle’ blast caps six-run ninth to avert sweep after club allows 14 walks
Doubters, detractors and the biggest, baddest dude on the field finally saw Jose Altuve without a shirt. The Astros’ heart and soul bared his chest for all to see. He did not dart for the dugout or clutch at his jersey. He savored each second, shunning some shyness for a fleeting moment. The most mentioned tattoo in baseball history resided on Altuve’s left collarbone. Wires or wearable devices were nowhere near it.
The New York Yankees are now far too familiar with Altuve’s game-clinching celebrations. They watched him leap into Michael Brantley’s arms and take his tattered shirt from Martin Maldonado. Dusty Baker embraced the face of this franchise, one of the few regulars remaining on a club ravaged by illness and injury. Altuve affords any collection of Astros hope even when it feels most farfetched.
“That’s a moment we’ve been waiting on for many years,” Maldonado said. “We had that feeling Altuve was going to do something big. The guy has done it many times, and he’s going to continue to do it.”
Altuve’s second walk-off home run against the Yankees did not come with the stakes of the first. His threerun home run against Chad Green on Sunday gave the Astros an 8-7 victory completed a five-run comeback, prevented a sweep and gave the Astros momentum going into the All-Star break. Winning any game in midJuly pales in comparison to a pennant.
Conjecture and chaos between Altuve’s two blasts put one of baseball’s most recent rivalries at its boiling point. The Yankees teased Altuve for the final two days of this three-game series. Aaron Judge tugged at his jersey Saturday night but claimed it was to combat the cold inside Minute Maid Park. After both of their home runs Sunday, a Yankees player wrapped the hitter in a large coat on this apparently frigid field.
Silently, Altuve has accepted two years of ridicule. He asked teammates not to rip off his jersey after the greatest hit of his career. The behavior is odd. Signstealing revelations arrived a month later, fueling reckless speculation. Unsubstantiated rumors surfaced that Altuve wore a buzzer against Aroldis Chapman in that fateful ninth inning. Altuve and all of his teammates continue to deny it.
Many do not seem to care. Judge’s actions revived the tired narrative. Manager Dusty Baker condemned them, but acknowledged “people can do what they want to do.”
“He’s the biggest, baddest
dude out there,” Baker said before the game.
Altuve can never claim to be the biggest. Sunday challenged Baker’s notion for the baddest. Altuve injected life into a team that had none of it. Houston played perhaps its most putrid game of the season for eight innings. Carlos Correa and Alex Bregman were out. Two supposed stalwarts of the starting rotation combined to throw eight innings. Relievers chose not to throw strikes. Staggering did not start to describe the state of this bunch.
Six Astros pitchers teamed to walk a franchiserecord 14 batters. Before the ninth, baseball’s best offense supplied five hits, scored two runs and turned an average starter into an ace.
“We seemed down,” outfielder Chas McCormick said. “I know we were really tired toward the ninth inning.
It seemed like we didn’t have any juice left.”
No team since the 2006 Tampa Bay Devil Rays had won a game while walking 14 batters. They beat the Yankees. Fifteen years later, the Yankees finished 3 for 16 with runners in scoring position and stranded 14 baserunners. Houston should be commended — and New York ridiculed — for keeping the game within striking distance.
“That was the most wonderful thing I’ve seen in years,” Baker said. “Boy, I’m at a loss for words. The guys kept battling and kept battling. It’s unbelievable to win that game the way we did, but the fact we had 14 walks and still won the game. That’s almost impossible.
“It just goes to show you that every run you hold from the opposition could be the deciding, winning run. We needed that game
badly.”
The Astros entered the eighth with four hits. Maldonado and Kyle Tucker struck solo home runs against Yankees starter Jameson Taillon for the extent of their scoring. Maldonado’s home run snapped a scoreless streak that spanned 22 innings. He had not hit one since June 16. He touched third base and opened his jersey while passing the Yankees dugout.
“It was a little hot,” Maldonado said. “I was trying to get some air inside my shirt.”
Tucker’s home run in the sixth shaved Houston’s deficit to one. Gio Urshela struck a single, and Gary Sanchez annihilated a three-run home run off Blake Taylor to push it back to five.
Yankees reliever Domingo German faced the minimum during the seventh and eighth. Manager Aaron
Boone sent him back for the ninth.
Boone got Green up in case of an emergency. Chapman, once considered an untouchable closer, did not warm up and did not appear in any of the three games this weekend.
Statcast gave the Yankees a 99 percent win probability when German started the ninth. He got to a 2-2 count against Yuli Gurriel. The cleanup man chopped a sinker back toward German and into no-man’s land. Gurriel reached with the infield single. Tucker followed with a double off the base of the center field wall. Boone called for Greene.
“Once Yuli hit that first hit it was like ‘OK, I think we can win this game,’ ” Abraham Toro said.
Toro and McCormick supplied run-scoring doubles against him. Pinch-hitter Jason Castro lined a single that sent Toro to third. Maldonado lined out, turning the lineup over for Altuve.
The crowd started chants of M-V-P.
“Everybody thought we were going to lose this game except for us,” Altuve told AT&T SportsNet Southwest.
Green fired a first-pitch fastball. Altuve took it for a called strike. Green spun a subpar curveball to even the count. He tried it again to get back ahead. It spun down in the strike zone. Altuve reached his barrel toward it.
The pint-sized second baseman golfed it toward the Crawford Boxes in left field. Toro retreated back to third base in case he needed to tag up.
“When he hit it,” Toro acknowledged, “I knew it was gone.”
The baseball traveled 368 feet. Tim Locastro looked up and watched it fall into the stands. Teammates around him trudged off the field. The first-base dugout emptied. Maldonado raced to home plate and began tugging his jersey. Altuve rounded third base and removed his helmet. He squeezed his shoulders together and entered the hysteria.
“It was 100 percent coming off,” McCormick said.
Maldonado grabbed at Altuve’s jersey. A throng of humanity helped him to remove it. Altuve emerged exposed. He smiled and started to walk across the field, tattered shirt in hand.
“That’s just him,” McCormick said. “That’s Jose Altuve, one of the best players in the league. It was awesome to get in that little dogpile at the end and seeing his shirt absolutely shredded to pieces.”