Cortes Gives Houston a Problem, Yanks Beat Asterisks

The Yankees went on a 3-game winning streak, but a toothless performance in the last game of their series in Seattle was all too familiar, and didn't raise fans' hopes as the team headed into Minute Maid Park to face the cheating Houston Astros, a.k.a. the Asterisks.

I don't think anybody expected last night's game to be nearly a complete reversal of the one before.

After all, the starting pitcher was Nestor Cortes, one of the guys we're counting on to fill the holes left in the rotation by the injuries to Corey Kluber and Luis Severino.

But Houston had a problem. Cortes -- the man, the myth, the mustache -- did the business. He shut the Astros down 1-2-3 in the 1st inning. He allowed a double by Kyle Tucker in the 2nd, but stranded him. He walked Robel Garcia in the 3rd, but stranded him. He allowed a single by Yordan Alvarez in the 4th, but stranded him. In their own half of the 4th, the Yankees got singles from Gleyber Torres and Gio Urshela, and a double from Brett Gardner, and Cortes was staked to a 2-0 lead.

Cortes started the bottom of the 5th by striking out Abraham Toro. He got Jason Castro to ground out. But he walked Garcia. Cortes is normally a reliever, had thrown 74 pitches, and the dangerous (even when he's not cheating) Jose Altuve was due up next.

Aaron Boone may have panicked, especially since the reliever he chose was Lucas Luetge, who, like Cortes, is a lefthander, and Altuve bats righthanded. In the end, though, it worked: Luetge struck the dirty little cheating bastard out, and keep the lead in the Bronx Bombers' hands. If we get on Boone for decisions that don't work out, we need to credit him for decisions that do, even if they don't seem to make much sense at the time.

Luetge pitched a perfect 6th. With 1 out in the top of the 7th, Gardner drew a walk, Tyler Wade doubled, and DJ LeMahieu doubled them home to make it 4-0. That iced it. Chad Green allowed a double to Kyle Tucker in the bottom of the 7th, but stranded him, then pitched a perfect 8th.

With a 4-run lead, the bottom of the 9th was not a save situation. But Boone gambled that it might not be a good idea to put a struggling Aroldis Chapman back on the mound where he'd surrendered the home run to Altuve that won * the 2019 American League Pennant for the Astros. Jonathan Loaisiga justified that gamble, by getting the 1st 2 outs, and then doing what Chapman prefers to do: Getting the last out on a 100-mile-an-hour 3rd strike, to Alvarez.

Yankees 4, Astros 0. WP: Luetge (3-1, since Cortes fell 1 out short of qualifying for the win). No save. LP: Jake Odorizzi (3-4). The Astros got only 5 baserunners: 3 hits and 2 walks, and only twice did they get a runner to 2nd base, never to 3rd. If Kluber's no-hitter earlier in the season was the Yankees' best pitching performance of the season so far, this may have been the most important one.

The series continues tonight. Gerrit Cole starts against Zack Greinke. If Cole has his good stuff, this could be an epic pitching duel. As we have seen, that may be a bigger "if" than we've hoped.