After last night's sloppy 6-5 victory in extra innings, the New York Yankees looked to take the final game of the three-game set against the reigning World Series champions, the Houston Astros. Houston had Yankee-killer Dallas Keuchel (3-6 3.39 ERA) get the start, and the Yankees countered with ace Luis Severino (7-1 2.28 ERA). The Yankees are trying to keep pace with the Boston Red Sox and they were 2.5 games back entering the game, and the Astros are trying to hold off the recently-surging Seattle Mariners.
Game recap
The Yankees scored the first run in the bottom half of the first, but could have done more damage if it wasn't for the defense of center fielder Jake Marisnick, who made a diving catch with runners on the corners and nobody out off the bat of Giancarlo Stanton.
The Yankees managed to score Aaron Hicks on the out via the sacrifice fly and gave the Yankees an early 1-0 lead.
The top of the fifth inning saw the Astros finally get to Severino, and, with Marwin Gonzalez already on second base; Max Stassi hit his fifth home run on the season to center field to give Houston a 2-1 lead.
In the bottom half of the inning, the Yankees answered back when they had the bases loaded and two outs for Gary Sanchez, who has been struggling recently and went against the shift and punched a ground ball to where the second baseman would play to score both Austin Romine and Aaron Judge to give the Yankees a 3-2 lead.
In the bottom half of the sixth inning, after last night's hero Gleyber Torres led off the inning with a double, Didi Gregorius hit a ball through the right side of the infield to score Torres and extend the Yankees' lead 4-2 and finish off Keuchel's start after 106 pitches.
The Yankees continued to attack in the inning with two outs and Austin Romine on first base. Aaron Hicks hit a blooper to left field that Marwin Gonzalez dove on and the ball went by him as Romine scored and gave the Yankees a 5-2 lead.
The Astros were able to score a run in the top of the ninth inning when Yuri Gurriel scored on an RBI double hit to left field by Max Stassi and made the score 5-3 Yankees.
Aroldis Chapman was able to get save number 12 on the year.
What's next for the Yankees?
The Yankees will head to Baltimore to face the struggling Orioles for a four-game set at Camden Yards on Thursday. The team begins an eleven game road trip that will have the Yankees face-off against the Orioles, Tigers in a double-header to make up for the two rainouts earlier this season, the Blue Jays, and the first half of the Subway Series against the New York Mets.
The Yankees will trot out Sonny Gray (3-4 5.98 ERA), and the Orioles will have Andrew Cashner (2-6 5.07 ERA) take the mound. The Bronx Bombers will look to improve on their less-than-impressive 13-8 road record thus far this season against the last place team in their division.
