{"id":7769,"date":"2015-10-07T08:13:55","date_gmt":"2015-10-07T15:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/astros-defeat-yankees-advance-to-alds\/"},"modified":"2015-10-07T08:13:55","modified_gmt":"2015-10-07T15:13:55","slug":"astros-defeat-yankees-advance-to-alds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/astros-defeat-yankees-advance-to-alds\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros defeat Yankees, advance to ALDS"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK<\/strong> \u2014 A year ago, no one could\u2019ve pictured this. Yet here they were, Dallas Keuchel and the Houston Astros, soaking in champagne, merrily posing for a victory shot on the mound at Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n

After all that losing, this was one October win to remember.<\/p>\n

Pitching on three days\u2019 rest for the first time in his career, Keuchel baffled New York for six innings of three-hit ball. Colby Rasmus and Carlos Gomez homered, and the Astros beat the Yankees 3-0 Tuesday night in the American League wild-card game.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody really gave us anything at the start of the year. And I don\u2019t think anybody gave us a shot at the end of the year,\u201d said Keuchel, the AL\u2019s only 20-game winner.<\/p>\n

The orange-clad Astros, who secured their spot in this winner-take-all game on the last day of the regular season, advanced to the Division Series against the defending AL champion Royals starting Thursday night in Kansas City.<\/p>\n

Aggressive from the start in their initial playoff appearance as an AL club \u2014 and first since being swept by the White Sox in the 2005 World Series \u2014 the Astros came out swinging against Masahiro Tanaka in front of a revved-up Bronx crowd.<\/p>\n

Rasmus sent Tanaka\u2019s first pitch of the second inning soaring into deep right field. Gomez, who only had five plate appearances after missing nearly two weeks with a strained chest muscle in mid-September, connected on the first offering of the fourth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat really settled me down, and that\u2019s who we are,\u201d Keuchel said. \u201cWe hit a lot of home runs, pitch well and play defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

AL hits leader Jose Altuve had an RBI single off All-Star reliever Dellin Betances in the seventh.<\/p>\n

Reliever Tony Sipp walked one, and Will Harris and Luke Gregerson were each perfect for an inning to finish the three-hitter. The boos from the 50,113 stunned fans in the crowd grew with each out as Gregerson closed for a save.<\/p>\n

The Astros raced to an area between first and second after Brian McCann grounded out to end it and jumped up and down in a big scrum. As he was coming off the field, Keuchel pumped his fists toward a group of cheering Astros supporters in orange shirts \u2014 a few in big black beards \u2014 behind the visiting dugout.<\/p>\n

It was a celebration a few years in the making, a raucous 30-minute party in the visiting clubhouse that carried onto the field. The Astros had averaged 104 losses in their previous four seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we get to go to Kansas City. It\u2019s going to be some grind-it-out baseball,\u201d Rasmus said. \u201cWe have to come in there the way we came in tonight. It\u2019s going to be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a matchup of teams that surprised many by building big division leads and then wasting them, the upstart Astros, just two years removed from a 111-loss season, looked the more comfortable team in the October limelight.<\/p>\n

They clowned around during pregame introductions, and stayed loose the whole game.<\/p>\n

The Yankees lost six of seven to close the regular season. Then before working out Monday, they learned CC Sabathia was checking into an alcohol rehab facility and would miss the postseason.<\/p>\n

Despite all the talk of a playoff reset for the struggling lineup, New York went bust against a new nemesis in its first postseason game of the post-Derek Jeter era.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust didn\u2019t get it done,\u201d manager Joe Girardi said.<\/p>\n

Fans taunted the 27-year-old Keuchel the moment he walked to the outfield for warmups. Then he toyed with the Yankees from the first batter, striking out Brett Gardner looking.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard not to get up for a game like this,\u201d Keuchel said of pitching on short rest. \u201cI\u2019ve worked so hard the last four years in the big leagues, especially with rebuilding with our team. I knew if we had a shot, I was going to give everything I possibly could.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gardner, McCann, Chris Young and Girardi had words with plate umpire Eric Cooper as Keuchel cruised through New York\u2019s lineup for the third time this season.<\/p>\n

The AL Cy Young Award contender held the Yankees scoreless for 16 innings in two regular-season starts. On this much bigger stage, the lefty was just as confounding, dropping his slider and two-seam fastball seemingly wherever he wanted in striking out seven as nearly all his teammates and coaches stood along the dugout railing for every pitch.<\/p>\n

When he gave up two singles in the sixth \u2014 bringing the crowd to its feet with Alex Rodriguez stepping into the batter\u2019s box \u2014 manager A.J. Hinch took a walk to the mound to give Keuchel a breather. Keuchel responded by getting A-Rod to fly out lazily to center field for his final out.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019\u2019He was as good as it gets,\u201d A-Rod said. \u201cHe was Greg Maddux from the left side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keuchel is the first pitcher with a scoreless postseason start on three days\u2019 rest since Josh Beckett pitched a shutout for the Marlins at Yankee Stadium in the clinching Game 6 of the 2003 World Series, STATS said.<\/p>\n

Tanaka struggled with the long ball, giving up 25 homers in 24 starts this year. He only allowed two more hits in five innings but matched a season high with three walks.<\/p>\n

ACE IN THE BOOTH<\/p>\n

Tampa Rays ace Chris Archer has a new October gig, analyst for ESPN. \u201cI did get a little nervous initially but we\u2019ve already done one segment of \u2018Baseball Tonight,\u2019 so I\u2019m good now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

TIME\u2019S UP<\/p>\n

During the regular season the countdown clock between innings was set to 2 minutes, 45 seconds for a national TV game. It was 3:15 for the first postseason game of 2015.<\/p>\n

TRAINER\u2019S ROOM<\/p>\n

Astros: Jed Lowrie pinch hit in the ninth for Gomez, who looked as if he tweaked his injury while batting in the sixth. \u201cEvery time I swing, I swing and I miss, I feel it,\u201d Gomez said.<\/p>\n

UP NEXT<\/p>\n

Hinch will set his rotation for the Division Series. Houston went 4-2 against the Royals this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 A year ago, no one could\u2019ve pictured this. Yet here they were, Dallas Keuchel and the Houston Astros, soaking in champagne, merrily posing for a victory shot on the mound at Yankee Stadium. After all that losing, this was one October win to remember. Pitching on three days\u2019 rest for the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-7769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7769"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}