Don't worry Yankees fans, not much was on your side going into game 1.
Firstly, they were coming off a rain postponed, shifted one day, game 5 division series win with a postgame celebration, to immediately getting on a flight to Houston to play game 1 the very following day. While on the other side, the Astros wrapped up their series in 3 games and enjoyed a 3 day rest at home. And that's before mentioning having to face this year's expected Cy Young winner Justin Verlander who you know was not going to have another dud like he did in game 1 of the division series, where he gave up 6 runs and 10 hits in 4 innings. Then attempting to counter that with your 4th rotation starter, Jameson Taillon, who just two days prior prepared himself to start the original game 5 only to be told otherwise after the game was moved. And finally with all the above against them, they had to go into the Astros home ballpark where in the regular season the 'Stros were tied for the second best home record in the league and just won their first two postseason games there. Just brutal.
The team with the best home record in baseball (tied with the Dodgers), was actually none other than the Yankees, which bodes well for games 3-5 at Yankee stadium, especially if they can steal this game 2. Additionally, the Yanks will have the top of their rotation to support them on their home turf, making this game such a big one for them.
Leaning on Luis Severino as their game 2 starter, he has been very solid for the Yankees over his career including this year's campaign, in the regular season. Severino's issues have been under the bright lights of the postseason where he has a 5.17 ERA vs 3.39 in the regular season. But to bring back some of that reassurance to Yankees' fans, he has shown flashes of his dominant self in the postseason, such as his 2018 wild card win and 2019 postseason where he actually lost to the Astros in the ALCS (though pitched well). The key to all those starts was taking him out after only 4 innings. Let's see if he can dig deep for one of those performances and exact some payback.
On the Astros side, what stands out on offense this postseason is that they have leaned on some of their lesser known young commodities. Yes yes, I (and the rest of the world) am very aware about the heroics and power of a one Air Yordan Alvarez, but the three players actually leading the team in on-base plus slugging (OPS) this postseason are second-year player Chas McCormick (1.200), rookie Jeremy Peña (1.181), and veteran Yuli Guriel (1.053). Over the regular season, all three of these players had batting averages around .250 and OPS ranging from .650 to .730. Just goes to show how deep, young, and clutch is this Astros team.
They aren't missing a beat even after losing all-star's George Springer and Carlos Correa over the last two years. I mean perennial all-star Jose Altuve doesn't even have a hit in this year's postseason! I wonder if he's ever gone 21 plate appearances without a hit before in his career.
One thing can be said for sure, both these teams rely on slugging the baseball, which means a lot of home runs. This was on full display in game 1 with 5 of the 6 total runs coming from 5 solo dingers. In fact, this postseason the Yankees have a rate of 17 at-bats per home run (with a crazy HR% of their hits & runs) and the Astros, 17.67 AB per HR. While the Yankees led the MLB in home runs over the regular season, the Astros were neck and neck in slugging percentage (rate of total bases per at-bat), .426 for NYY vs .424 for HOU, 4th and 5th in the MLB respectively. So expect the long balls to continue, especially considering both the ballparks they're playing in have short outfield fences to one side, left field at Minute Maid Park (Astros) and right field at Yankee Stadium. Long live the long ball with these two.
With all that said, this will be a fun one to watch. It's a big series turning point for both teams. Can the Yankees bounce back after the tough climb they had for game 1, or will the Astros deep lineup continue to surprise and outperform expectations?
And if that didn't get you excited enough for this one, our Props are below to add some additional fun. All have nearly even chances of happening, so anyone can play. Grab some friendly competition and see who can get the most correct!
Team to score first:
[ ] Yankees
[ ] Astros
Team to hit first homerun:
[ ] Yankees
[ ] Astros
Total Runs combined after the 5th inning of 4 or more:
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
Aaron Judge to score 1 Run or more:
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
Jose Altuve to have 1 Single or more:
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
Air Yordan to have 2 or more Total Bases (from hits only):
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
Yankees Total Runs at end of game to be:
[ ] Odd
[ ] Even
Tiebreaker: Guess the Total Runs scored by both teams combined, closest to the result wins! (Currently estimated to be around 7)
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