NEW YORK _ Dallas Keuchel has shut out the Yankees in regular-season games and slayed them in October, always dissecting a lineup with precision.
Never overpowering but constantly baffling, the ace lefty generally had his way with the Yankees again in Thursday night's 3-2 Astros win before 39,050 fans at Yankee Stadium.
With Keuchel out of the game, the Yanks finally had a chance. But the potential tying run was thrown out at the plate.
Gary Sanchez singled with runners at second and third and two out in the ninth against closer Ken Giles, scoring Aaron Hicks (walk) from third base. But Jacoby Ellsbury (single, stolen base) was gunned down by left fielder Jake Marisnick's throw home to end the game.
Keuchel did not allow an earned run over his six innings, out-pitching Michael Pineda in the first of a four-game series between the leaders of the AL West and AL East divisions.
And there was no better example of the Yanks' frustrations and Keuchel's dominance than in Thursday's sixth inning.
The Yankees trailed 3-1 when Matt Holliday opened the sixth with a single and Starlin Castro lined a hard single off the left-field wall, putting runners at the corners.
But using his sharp, downward-moving array of sliders, cutters and change-ups, Keuchel (6-0) struck out Aaron Judge, Chase Headley and Didi Gregorius in succession. That ended Keuchel's night at 97 pitches.
And Keuchel's excellence recalled his six scoreless innings at Yankee Stadium in the 2015 AL wild-card game, beating the Yankees 3-0 and sending them into a sudden winter.
On Tuesday night, Keuchel _ the AL's April pitcher of the month _ collected nine strikeouts, walked one and allowed five hits.
"He lives on the corners, lives down, gets a lot of groundball outs and those can turn into double plays," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said before the game. "You try to get the ball in the air off him. We have some guys capable of hitting it out, and that's what you hope happens."
Carlos Correa's two-run homer gave the Astros (24-11) a 2-0, first-inning lead against Pineda (3-2), who lasted 62/3 innings. A two-out, RBI single by George Springer scored Alex Bregman (double) to make it 3-0 in the fifth.
The Yankees (21-11) scored just once against Keuchel, and that was courtesy of two Astros errors.
There should have been two out and nobody on in the fifth, but first baseman Yuri Gurriel dropped an easy throw by second baseman Jose Altuve, who had fielded Headley's soft grounder _ a common result Tuesday against Keuchel.
Gregorius followed with a ground single to right and Hicks walked. But after Chris Carter struck out on a 3-and-2 pitch with the bases loaded, Ellsbury reached on catcher's interference against ex-teammate Brian McCann, cutting the lead to 3-1.
Any further damage was prevented by third baseman Bregman, who made a terrific on-the-move scoop of Sanchez's tough, soft grounder and threw quickly to first to end the inning.
Pineda was partly a victim of his defense in the first inning, when Josh Reddick's one-out flare dropped between Gregorius and Ellsbury in center field for a double. Correa followed two batters later with a two-out homer to right, his fifth of the year.
From that point, Pineda retired 11 of the next 12 hitters he faced. Pineda pitched around Altuve's leadoff double in the sixth, and overall yielded three runs on six hits and a walk with seven strikeouts.
