HOUSTON _ The Yankees got a break in this regard, and only in this regard.
A trip with seemingly a half-season's worth of soul-crushing one-run losses concluded with an old-fashioned blowout loss to the Astros on Sunday afternoon.
The Bombers took an 8-1 defeat in front of a sellout crowd of 41,761.
Though in some ways the setback was an example of a young team getting a reminder it has a ways to go before being in the same conversation as the Astros, who improved to a major-league best 56-27, it's worth remembering the Yankees did lead Saturday's game 6-3 in the eighth inning before Dellin Betances imploded.
Nonetheless, the Yankees (43-37) limped home after a 3-4 trip _ which started with a four-game split against the awful White Sox _ three games behind the Red Sox in the AL East.
Luis Severino, the Yankees best pitcher in the first half, was not sharp. Severino, who came in 5-3 with a 3.15 ERA, including 3-1 with a 2.77 ERA over his previous 10 starts, allowed a season-worst six runs and a season-worst nine hits over 5 1/3 innings.
The 23-year-old, however, was far from the afternoon's main issue. The Yankees offense, even in driving up the pitching count of Astros right-hander Mike Fiers over four innings, could get nothing off him. Fiers was at 85 pitches through three but had stranded six. After Didi Gregorius worked a one-out walk in the third, Astros pitching retired 15 straight, a skid Aaron Judge snapped with his second hit of the day, a one-out single in the eighth.
By then the Astros, who had 14 hits, were comfortably ahead 8-0.
Judge and Gary Sanchez each had two hits. The Yankees had two of their six hits in the ninth when Chris Carter's RBI single pushed their first run across, keeping his club one of two this season not to get shut out.
Carlos Correa, not yet three full years into his big-league career already taking his place near the head of the list of Yankee killers, had four hits and three RBI. Marwin Gonzalez and Yuli Gurriel, whose two-run double off Aroldis Chapman was the difference Saturday night, each had two hits, including two-run homers.
Gonzalez's two-run homer in the second made it 2-0 and Josh Reddick's RBI double later in the inning made it 3-0. Correa's two-out, two-run double in the fourth made it 5-0.
