Yankees hit four home runs in victory over Astros
The Yankees' Gleyber Torres reacts after he scores on his three-run home run against the Astros during the fourth inning at Yankee Stadium on Thursday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Some opening.
Both by Chad Green — again — and by the Yankees to start this measuring-stick series against the Astros.
With Green excelling in the opener role and a lineup looking more powerful by the day — one that will add Aaron Judge on Friday — the Yankees beat the Astros, 10-6, on Thursday night in front of 41,030 at the Stadium.
The Yankees, now a season-high 20 games over .500 at 47-27 after their sixth straight victory, moved 4 1/2 games ahead of the second-place Rays, who were stunned by a walk-off three-run homer by Matt Chapman in a four-run ninth inning that produced a 5-4 Oakland victory later Thursday night.
The Yankees shined top to bottom in the first game of a four-game series against the Astros (48-28), a team they very well could see in October.
“Just putting together lineups in our heads,” Green said of Judge coming aboard after a lengthy stint on the injured list. “A lot of guys that can hit in a lot of different places. It’s going to be a tough lineup to pitch against.”
The Yankees’ lineup Thursday had 12 hits, including three by Giancarlo Stanton. Edwin Encarnacion hit his 23rd homer, Gary Sanchez his 22nd and Gleyber Torres his 17th.
DJ LeMahieu also homered — which improved him to 31-for-66 this season with runners in scoring position.
The Astros, who scored two runs in the ninth and forced Aroldis Chapman to replace David Hale with the tying run on deck, also hit four home runs, two by Jake Marisnick (three hits). Houston, which had 12 hits, has lost five straight games.
The Yankees hit three of their four home runs in a six-run fourth inning in which they sent 10 to the plate.
“As a group they just make it really tough,” Aaron Boone said. “The at-bat quality I felt like all night was there. And made for some very difficult innings. I thought their starter was really tough the first go-round and looked like his stuff was really good. But the at-bats the next go-round, they really locked it in and made it tough on him.”
The Astros starter was lefthander Framber Valdez, who came in 3-2 with a 2.77 ERA. Sanchez opened the inning against him with a blast to leftfield.
As the rain intensified — it caused a 37-minute delay later in the inning — Torres added a three-run shot to left-center to make it 4-0. LeMahieu completed the fourth-inning trifecta with a two-run homer into Monument Park to make it 6-0.
Encarnacion then hit his second homer as a Yankee, a two-run shot in the seventh that made it 10-3.
The Astros got back-to-back two-out homers from Marisnick and Alex Bregman off winning pitcher Nestor Cortes Jr. in the fifth to make it 6-2.
Cameron Maybin, whose roster spot was saved for the moment when Cortes was optioned to the minors afterward to free a spot for Judge, had a solid game in leftfield and contributed a two-run double in the fifth that gave the Yankees an 8-2 lead. Yordan Alvarez’s solo home run off Tommy Kahnle in the sixth made it 8-3.
Green, meanwhile, seems to be reestablishing himself as one of the top strikeout arms in baseball, helping the Yankees improve to 6-0 this season when they use an opener (he’s taken all six of those turns).
While not quite as dominant as he was Saturday in Chicago, when he struck out six of seven White Sox batters, the righthander was plenty effective in two scoreless innings, striking out three. Thursday’s outing gave him this impressive line for his last 10 games — two earned runs allowed, one walk and 22 strikeouts in 13 1⁄3 innings.
“It’s kind of all I’ve done my last three outings now,” Green said of opening. “I’m definitely used to it. It’s nothing crazy, we’ll see if it continues. We’re winning ballgames with it right now, so it seems to be working.”
Green, who struck out 103 batters in 69 innings in 2017 and 94 in 75 2⁄3 innings in 2018, was sent to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on April 23 after recording a 16.43 ERA in his first 10 games. His resurgence has been all about better fastball command, something he didn’t have in April.
“It just gives the hitter a second look,” he said after his outing Saturday. “When guys sit on one pitch up here, it normally doesn’t go too well. Just trying to give them another look and have more consistency with that pitch.’’
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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