NEW YORK — For three days, the crowds at Yankee Stadium wore Jose Altuve out. They chanted obscenities at him, chanted and booed every time he came to the plate — or the Astros did anything. In the eighth inning Thursday, the Houston second baseman at least quieted them for a split second with a three-run blast.
Altuve homered off Chad Green to give the Astros a wild come-from-behind 7-4 win in the matinee finale of a contentious three-game series at Yankee Stadium.
The Yankees bullpen, which had been unscored upon for their last nine innings, gave up five runs in two Thursday. Green gave up the high homer to left to Altuve and Justin Wilson gave up a nail-in-the-coffin two-run shot to catcher Martin Maldonado in the top of the ninth.
The Yankees had rallied within a run on an unusual play in the bottom of the eighth, when Gleyber Torres scored from first on an infield ground ball by beating the shift.
Aaron Hicks’ ground ball to shortstop Carlos Correa behind second base, where Torres had already pulled in. Correa flipped the ball to third baseman Alex Bregman, who was heading to cover second. Torres, seeing third base, took off and Maldonado tried sprinting up, but was nowhere near the base.
Torres, seeing Maldonado chugging up the line without the ball, put his head down and outsprinted the catcher to the plate as the Astros stood and watched in disbelief.
Maldonado’s home run off Wilson, however, killed that momentum and gave the Astros some sense of satisfaction after three days of being harassed.
Altuve, who was singled out for having edged out Aaron Judge for the MVP in 2017, the year that MLB’s investigators confirmed the Astros were electronically stealing opposing teams’ signs and relaying them audibly in real time to hitters in the batter’s box. There have also been accusations that Altuve may have been wearing a buzzer or some kind of device to alert him to the coming pitch in the 2019 American League Championship, when he hit a walk-off home run off Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman.
But, on his 31st birthday, Altuve proved once again to be a thorn in the Yankees’ side and apparently immune to the shaming that the rest of baseball feels he deserves. He also had a single off Yankees ace — and his former teammate — Gerrit Cole.
That snapped a season-high five-game winning streak for the Yankees (16-15).
Cole helped hold off his former team, allowing just two — massive — home runs to Yordan Alvarez in seven innings. He struck out four and did not walk a batter. Alvarez’s fourth-inning shot to the second-deck in right field was just the second home run Cole had allowed this season. Alvarez’s second, in the seventh, made it the first time this season and since last August that Cole had given up multiple homers in a game.
The loss, however, did not stop Giancarlo Stanton, who extended his hitting streak to 12 straight games and hit his third home run in as many games.
