(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Henk Seppen)
 Didi Gregorius homers Yankees to win and League Championship Series
Nederlands
 CLEVELAND, Ohio (USA) -
New York Yankees won 5-2 on Wednesday-evening (October 11) against Cleveland Indians to win the best-of-five American League Division Series, 3-2.
With the win, the Yankees advance to the best-of-seven American League Championship Series and now will travel to Houston where it will meet the Houston Astros, starting on Friday.
The Yankees lost the first two games, but then won the next three in a row.
Cleveland opened the Series on Thursday with a 4-0 shutout-win, then won the second game on Friday with a 9-8 in 13 innings after trailing 8-3 halfway the sixth inning.
On Sunday, the Yankees avoided a sweep by winning only 1-0, then won 7-3 on Monday to bring the ALDS in balance, 2-2.
With today's loss, Cleveland was eliminated and dethroned as American League Champion.
Last year, the Indians lost the World Series against Chicago Cubs.
Didi Gregorius put the Yankees ahead by hitting two homeruns and with that, he led his team to victory and to the ALCS.
'Sir Didi' hit a solo-homerun in the first inning, then added a 2-run homerun in the third at bat.
Gregorius became only the third Yankee-player in its 116-year history of the club with a multi-homerun game in a winner-takes-all-game.
The others are legend Yogi Berra (World Series 1956) and Jason Giambi (ALCS 2003).
Didi became the first player with three homeruns in winner-take-all-games in the same postseason.
He also homered in the best-of-one Wild Card Game against Minnesota Twins.
Cleveland got two runs back in the bottom of the fifth inning to narrow the deficit to only 3-2.
But the Yankees hold onto the lead and added two runs in the ninth when the Cleveland-defense committed two errors.
There were a total of 31 strikeouts in tonight's game, which set a new record.
Yankee-rightfielder Aaron Judge got four of these strikeouts.
With that, he had three games in this Series with four strikeouts.
Judge was 1-for-20 with 16 strikeouts!
The starting pitchers today were Corey Kluber (Cleveland) and C.C. Sabathia (New York).
31-year old righthander Corey Kluber was 18-4 with a 2.25 ERA this season to become a leading candidate for the Cy Young Award in the American League.
He was the starter in Game 2 of the Series against the Yankees, but threw only 2 2/3 inning, giving up seven hits and six earned runs.
Cleveland went on to win the game 9-8 in 13 innings.
37-year old lefthander C.C. Sabathia was 14-5 this season with a 3.69 ERA.
Like Kluber, he was the starting pitcher in Game 2 of the Series.
Sabathia then threw 5 1/3 inning, giving up three basehits.
Sabathia, who pitched for Cleveland in 2001-2008, had a good outing tonight, striking out nine hitters and giving up five hits, but he was relieved with one out in the fifth inning.
After David Robertson threw 2 2/3 scoreless inning, Aroldis Chapman closed the game and struckout four more hitters.
(October 11)
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On a rainy day in Cleveland, the Yankees struck early and it was Didi Gregorius who set the tone for the team from The Bronx in the top of the first inning.
Cleveland-starter Corey Kluber retired the first two hitters, but then Gregorius homered on a 2-1 pitch to put the Yankees ahead.
In the top of the second inning, the Yankees got into scoring position again.
With two outs, Aaron Hicks walked and Jacoby Ellsbury was awarded first base on catcher's interference.
In September, Ellsbury got on base via catcher's interference for the 30th time (!) in his career to break the all-time record of baseball-great Pete Rose.
Hicks and Ellsbury stranded when a flyout ended the at bat.