In the first inning at Minute Maid Park, both teams reached base, but were held scoreless and hitless.
In the top of the first inning, Aaron Judge walked, but stranded on first base.
Dallas Keuchel struckout two Yankees.
In the bottom of the first inning, Masahiro Tanaka walked lead-off hitter George Springer.
He was forced out on a grounder by Josh Reddick, who then also was left behind on first base.
Both teams were retired in order in the second inning with Keuchel added two strikeouts.
In the top of the third inning, Brett Gardner accounted for the first basehit in the game.
He singled with two outs, but was left on first base, as Keuchel closed the inning by striking out Aaron Judge.
In the ALDS against Cleveland, Judge was 1-for-20 with 16 strikeouts!
Tanaka retired the Houston-side again in the bottom of the third.
In the top of the fourth inning, the Houston-defense made two great outs.
With one out, Didi Gregorius hit a hard grounder to second baseman José Altuve, who made a nice play to throw out the Amsterdam-born player.
Hereafter, Starlin Castro singled, but the inning then ended when centerfielder George Springer made a nice catch against the fence in centerfield on a line drive from Aaron Hicks.
Since the opening of Minute Maid Park in 2000, there was a hill in centerfield where players had to run upward when the ball was hit there.
After completion of last season, a major renovation took place which saw the removal of the hill.
With that, the centerfield-fence moved in from 436 feet to 409 feet.
The area where the hill was has been replaced by additional seating and concession stands.
In the bottom of the fourth, Masahiro Tanaka had to give up his first basehits, which also led to the first runs.
With one out, José Altuve reached on an infield-hit and stole second base to become the first player tonight to get into scoring position.
He then scored the first run in the game when next hitter Carlos Correa also singled.
Moments later, Correa advanced on a grounder by Marwin Gonzalez, then scored the second run on a single by Cuban Yulieski Gurriel.
...Yulieski Gurriel batted in the 2nd run...
...for Houston in the 4th inning...
...On the photo, he is hitting fo Cuba during...
...the 2013 World Baseball Classic...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
Houston led the Major League this season in several categories, including batting average, on base-percentage, best average with runners in scoring position, basehits and runs scored.
In this last category, Houston led with 896 with the Yankees finishing second with 858.
The two teams also were the best in hitting homeruns.
New York led with 241, Houston was second with 238.
In on base-percentage, Houston led with .346, while New York shared second place with Cleveland Indians with .339.
Houston also had the fewest strikeouts this season with 1087, while the Yankees were 19th in this category with 1386.
In the past four seasons, Houston belonged to the teams with the worst (highest) strikeout-percentage in a season!
The team was 27th (out of 30) last year and 29th in both 2014 and 2015 after finishing last in 2013.
In the top of the fifth inning, the Yankees got their first two hitters on base, but were held scoreless.
Greg Bird led off with a single and reached second base safely when José Altuve made an error on a force play-grounder by Matt Holliday.
Hereafter, Todd Frazier lined out to centerfield and Brett Gardner struckout, but Aaron Judge then (finally!) made good contact and singled.
Bird was waved home to score, but was eliminated at the plate in a close play.
A challenge followed, but the call by Home Plate Umpire Chad Fairfield was upheld and ended the inning.
In the top of the sixth, Keuchel added two more strikeouts to lift his total to nine.
In the bottom of the sixth, Houston got into scoring position again, but left a runner behind on second base.
In the top of the eighth inning, Chris Devenski took over from Dallas Keuchel, who had struckout ten batters and gave up only four hits in seven innings.
With one out, Devenski walked Brett Gardner and was relieved by closer Ken Giles, who earned 34 saves this season.
Giles faced Aaron Judge, who set a record for rookies by hitting 52 homeruns in the regular season.
However, so far, this postseason, Judge had not been successful.
Gardner advanced to second base on a wild pitch, but was unable to move when Judge grounded out.
The Yankees got another baserunner when Giles walked Gary Sánchez, who was then replaced by pinch-runner Ronald Torreyes.
That brought Didi Gregorius in the batter's box, who had been the hero in Game 5 of the ALDS.
However, this time, he struckout and that ended the at bat.
While the Houston-pitching dominated, the suspense got back in the top of the ninth inning.
Ken Giles struckout the first two hitters, but hereafter, Greg Bird homered down the rightfield-line that ended the shutout and cut Houston's lead in half.
Hereafter, Giles closed with another strikeout, the fourteenth for the Yankees tonight.
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Houston nips New York; Pitching dominates in ALCS-opener
HOUSTON, Texas (USA) -
Houston Astros opened the best-of-seven American League Championship Series against New York Yankees on Friday-evening (October 13) with a small 2-1 victory.
Game 2 will be played on Saturday in Houston.
Wild Card Game-winner New York reached the ALCS on Wednesday by winning 5-2 against Cleveland Indians to win the Division Series, 3-2, after having lost the first two games.
In that game, Didi Gregorius homered twice to lead the Yankees to victory.
With the loss, Cleveland was eliminated and dethroned as American League Champion.
Last year, the Indians lost the World Series against Chicago Cubs.