HOUSTON _ The Houston Astros are alive. Before a sold-out Minute Maid Park on Friday night, their hitters awoke from an inconvenient slumber at a necessary time and their acquired ace turned in another gleaming performance.
The Astros staved off elimination, crushed the New York Yankees, 7-1, and forced a seventh game in this taut American League Championship Series. On Saturday, these teams will exhaust their pitching staffs in a battle to face the refreshed Dodgers on Tuesday in Los Angeles.
Justin Verlander won Houston the second game of this series with a complete-game masterwork. Although the Yankees scored less against Verlander Friday than they did in Game 2, they challenged him more this time. That did not preclude occasional ugliness. To finish the fifth, Verlander flipped a curveball into the zone against Todd Frazier, who did not begin his swing until Houston catcher Brian McCann had already closed his glove on the baseball. Caught unsuspecting, Frazier resembled a Little Leaguer taking his first hitting lesson.
To conclude the sixth, Gary Sanchez worked a 3-and-0 count, then meekly swung at a slider. Perplexingly, he opted to check his swing, and thusly tapped out to shortstop. A walk would have loaded the bases for Greg Bird, one of the Yankees' best-performing hitters this month.
The Yankees again tested Verlander in the seventh. Bird walked and Starlin Castro was hit by a pitch, and Aaron Hicks watched three balls pass him by to begin his at-bat. Verlander then pumped two fastballs for strikes, the latter a gift from plate umpire Jim Reynolds. Hicks fouled off the next four pitches before Verlander spun a tantalizing slider that landed just below the zone. Hicks struck out.
Frazier did not wait as long to swing. He sent the second pitch he saw to the center-field wall, where George Springer leapt to grab it, earning a cap tip from Verlander. A groundout ended the inning. Although Verlander threw 25 fewer pitches than he did in his Game 2 shutout, Astros manager A.J. Hinch elected to pull him there.
New York's young starter, Luis Severino, matched Verlander at all early checkpoints, continuing where his teammates left off in New York. The 23-year-old right-hander did not permit a hit until Correa redirected a 99-mph fastball in a 3-and-2, two-out count in the fourth inning.
Come the fifth, Severino lost his command, walking Alex Bregman and Evan Gattis. With one out, Brian McCann reached for a two-strike fastball on the outside edge and pulled it to right, where it bounced off the track into the stands for a ground-rule double.
That scored the game's first run. Severino walked Springer to load the bases for Josh Reddick, who popped out in his 20th at-bat without a hit in this series. Up stepped Jose Altuve, who confidently offered at Severino's first pitch and sent a single shooting to left field. That scored two more runs and elicited Severino's exit.
After Judge blasted a solo shot in the top of the eighth for the Yankees' only run, Houston added four runs against David Robertson, New York's normally-sharp set-up man. Correa and Bregman doubled; Altuve homered.
Most pitchers decline within their starts, as their stamina wanes and hitters become more familiar with their pitches' movements. The league hits much better when facing someone the third time than the first, even for Verlander. But Severino is an outlier who this season performed the same throughout his outings, justifying Yankees manager Joe Girardi's inclination to leave him in that long into the fifth.
On Saturday, both Girardi and Hinch's decisions will be hotly scrutinized. Who will be the first to pull his starting pitcher? Who will demand the most from his top relievers? Will it matter?
