Bombers motivated to close gap with Houston

For the fourth time in the last six years, the Yankees are watching the Astros represent the American League in the World Series.

In three of those years, the Astros have been directly responsible for ending the Yankees’ season in the ALCS, including this one. No matter how much the teams have changed or which key free agents the Astros have lost, they continue to be the Yankees’ biggest roadblock to reaching a World Series, and that may not change any time soon.

“A team that obviously has wreaked havoc on us the past couple years with different teams on their end and different teams on our end,” general manager Brian Cashman said Friday at Yankee Stadium. “It’s certainly frustrating. In one case, you respect the competition. The team we went up against this year, the pitching was amazing from the rotation into the bullpen. I knew we were going to have our hands full and we were going to have to play our best baseball both offensively, defensively and pitching to be able to find a way to navigate them. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.

“So, back to the drawing board.”

How the Yankees will spend their offseason trying to close that gap remains to be seen.

Both Cashman and manager Aaron Boone pointed to key injuries — to DJ LeMahieu, Andrew Benintendi, Michael King, Chad Green and Scott Effross, among others — that kept the Yankees from being the best version of themselves against the Astros.

They both also lauded the Astros’ pitching staff, which Boone said was “as healthy and deep” as any team’s heading into the postseason. In the ALCS, Astros pitchers limited the Yankees to just nine runs on 21 hits and 50 strikeouts across four games.

“We haven’t been able to beat them,” Boone said. “I said we need to slay that dragon, we haven’t done it yet. That hurts. It’s also a motivating factor to try to continue to get better and work.”

But Boone insisted that the Yankees are not far from being able to achieve that goal.

“We’ve been knocking on that door now for a long time,” Boone said. “We haven’t punched through. I certainly understand the frustration of that with everyone. We all feel that as much as everyone.”