NEW YORK _ The warmup act for the Derek Jeter Night ceremonies ultimately wowed the crowd Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.
After throwing back the lead to the Astros with a three-run top of the seventh in Game 1 of a doubleheader, the Yankees countered with a six-run bottom half highlighted by a tiebreaking three-run triple by Chase Headley.
They went to claim an 11-6 win after dropping the first two games of a measuring-stick series against the team with MLB's best record. The Yankees had lost three straight overall.
Beforehand, they were dealing with the news flash about Aroldis Chapman. The closer is down for probably at least a month, according to Brian Cashman, due to rotator cuff inflammation.
"You can't replace an arm like that," Joe Girardi said. "You just kind of move everyone back a little bit."
Dellin Betances will play the part of Chapman like he did after the Cuban lefty was traded late last July to the Cubs.
"Collectively, we'll do what this team has continued to do so far this year," Cashman said. "We lost Didi (Gregorius) for a period of time and (Ronald) Torreyes filled in really well. We lost (Gary) Sanchez for a period of time and you know the story of that with (Austin) Romine. So obviously now it's Chappie. You've got to plug and play. That's what the teams that are worthy enough do."
The Yankees (22-12) weren't looking worthy after Houston took a 6-4 lead in the seventh. But the bottom half started with Will Harris giving up a leadoff single to Brett Gardner and a double to Jacoby Ellsbury.
Matt Holliday reached on an infield hit _ 6-5. Chris Devenski replaced Harris and Starlin Castro greeted him with a double _ 6-6.
Aaron Judge was handed an intentional walk to load the bases. Gregorius struck out on three pitches. But Headley lined a ball to right-center that rolled all the way to the fence to make it 9-6. Chris Carter followed by lining a double to left for a 10-6 lead. Gardner tacked on a solo shot in the eighth to set the final margin.
Adam Warren (1-0) had come on with his 0.47 ERA for the seventh, trying to protect a 4-3 edge. But he promptly allowed the Astros to score three runs, two of them earned.
With a run in on a single by Evan Gattis, Marwin Gonzalez grounded a potential inning-ending double-play ball to Castro. But his backhand flip to Gregorius at second sailed into shallow left, allowing the go-ahead run to cross. Yuli Gurriel then lifted a sacrifice fly to right to make it a 6-4 game.
The Astros (25-12) were up 3-1 heading for the home fourth. Three batters later, they were losing 4-3.
Mike Fiers walked Holliday to start the inning. Castro stepped in and sent up the tying drive to the right-field seats.
And then the attraction named Judge ruled again, launching another of his rockets. This one cruised 441 feet before crashing off a black window on the side of the restaurant above Monument Park in center.
The Yankees scored the first run of the game in the first.
But Luis Severino wasn't in command from the start, creating traffic jams for Houston in all three innings.
The still-inconsistent 23-year-old righty got out of the first two jams, but he got pulled by Girardi with one out in the third, having allowed three runs, six hits and three walks, and hit a batter. So Severino left down 3-1 and with the bases loaded. Only 46 of his 77 pitches went for strikes.
It took Chad Green two pitches to get an inning-ending double play. The right-hander, who replaced Chapman on the roster, threw 48 pitches and allowed just one hit over 3 2/3 innings.
