Yankees, Astros brought playoff intensity to classic June series
By Jake Mintz
FOX Sports MLB Writer
Aaron Judge lifted a two-out, three-run, walk-off laser beam to beat the Astros on Sunday in the Bronx, and Yankee Stadium rattled and roared with a ferocity typically reserved for the colder months of postseason baseball.
Aaron Judge wins it in extras
This was not a typical regular-season series. This roller-coaster, four-game set between New York and Houston was a battle, a precursor, a dress rehearsal and, most importantly, a damn good show.
As electric as regular-season baseball could possibly be.
Granted, the circumstances were particularly special: The two best teams in the American League, each on a hot streak, with a recent history of distaste between the two fan bases, squaring off for a four-game set over a weekend? Oh, baby. Yes, please.
Epic series in the Bronx
The Yanks took the opener on Thursday after trailing for most of the game when Aaron Hicks smashed an incredibly satisfying, game-tying, three-run blast in the ninth before Judge walked it off with a hit down the line later in the inning.
Houston responded the next night behind a trademark performance from the ageless Justin Verlander, who twirled seven masterful innings, allowing a single run on four hits. A three-run Kyle Tucker smash in the sixth was enough for Houston, which held on for a huge bounce-back win.
Saturday afternoon’s affair, even though it was a combined no-hitter from the Astros, was probably the least tense and entertaining game of the four. Cristian Javier was untouchable for seven innings, Hector Neris survived by the skin of his teeth in the eighth, and Ryan Pressly finished the historic achievement with an easy save.
Sunday was the cherry on top of a good baseball sundae, as the Yanks pushed across three runs in the latter half of the ballgame, tying it up in the eighth on a DJ LeMahieu two-run shot. Things went to extras, and once Houston failed to bring around the zombie in the top of the 10th, the outcome of the contest felt somewhat inevitable. With runners on the corners and two outs, Judge did what Judge does, and the Yankees won the ballgame.
MLB Power Rankings
The House that Haphazardly Replaced the House that Ruth Built was a thunderdome all weekend, a cauldron of noise and obscenities packed to the brim, postseason-style. With "F--- Altuve" hats and trash-can-related graphic T-shirts aplenty, Yanks fans created an atmosphere rarely seen during regular-season games, an atmosphere some Yankees players admitted they’d never truly experienced before.
Before he was traded to New York during spring training, Yankees shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa spent the first four seasons of his big-league career in Texas. In three of those four seasons, the Rangers finished last in the AL West. Before that, he was in the minor leagues for half a decade. The last high-stakes, high-energy baseball game Kiner-Falefa played was likely the 2013 Hawaii State Championship, in which his Mid-Pacific Institute Owls defeated the Mililani High School Trojans.
So yeah, it has been a minute.
"As a team, I feel like the energy of the crowd really gets us going," Kiner-Falefa told FOX Sports before Friday's game. "I think the fans really give us life. And me personally, I love it, especially coming from a 100-loss team. Sometimes it's a lot, but it's what you dream of as a kid. It's the best. Who wouldn't be happy with this?"
Astros throw combined no-hitter
Joey Gallo, who played with Kiner-Falefa in Texas before being traded to the Yankees at the 2021 trade deadline, agreed that the energy at Yankee Stadium for the games against Houston was particularly raucous.
"It's definitely not just another four-game series," Gallo told FOX Sports. "There's definitely a lot more intensity here than a typical series."
On more than one occasion this season, the scuffling Gallo has been the recipient of that intensity himself, with the Yankees faithful booing him off the field after a strikeout. Nonetheless, Gallo appeared appreciative of the atmosphere Yanks fans helped create during the Houston series.
"It's f---ing aggressive out there. You definitely feel that adrenaline in the stadium. It was pretty f---ing rowdy. Especially in the outfield. But yeah, it's exciting. It felt like a playoff game," he said.
Even with the energy at the park turned up to 10, members of the Yankees' coaching staff revealed that they approached this series like any other from a process and game-planning perspective.
"I feel like we're trying to just play the series as it is and try to win each game with the options we have available," Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake told FOX Sports.
Kyle Tucker's moonshot
Even though Yankees weren’t going to empty the bullpen or press the panic button in a late June showdown, Blake said the coaching staff would pore over the information gleaned from the series against Houston more than they might after a typical series.
"All of this informs us going forward of what may apply in the postseason, right?" he said. "There's not things that we would necessarily, like, hide here. I think it's more let's see what works and what doesn't now, and then we can iterate as we go forward."
Blake & Co. will have another chance to compile data on Houston, as the Yankees travel to Minute Maid Park for a single game Thursday before returning for a doubleheader in late July. It’s a bizarre way to play a three-game set, caused by the lockout-induced schedule changes. It’s a weird feature of this season's schedule that will certainly make the showdown in Houston feel less like a typical series.
But October comes more quickly than one might realize, and while the Blue Jays, Red Sox, Rays and whoever emerges from the lackluster AL Central might knock off one of the heavyweights, it seems increasingly likely that the road to World Series glory will run through both New York and Houston.
And if this weekend was any indication, that potential ALCS would be baseball theater of the highest order.
Jake Mintz is the louder half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball writer for FOX Sports. He’s an Orioles fan living in New York City, and thus, he leads a lonely existence most Octobers. If he’s not watching baseball, he’s almost certainly riding his bike. You can follow him on Twitter @Jake_Mintz.
