HOUSTON (AP) — Dallas Keuchel dominated the Yankees again, striking out 10 in seven scoreless innings to lead the Houston Astros over New York 2-1 on Friday night in the AL Championship Series opener.
Keuchel entered with a 1.24 ERA against the Yankees in regular season starts plus six shutout innings in the 2015 AL wild card game, He allowed four hits — all singles — walked one and joined Nolan Ryan and Mike Scott as the only Astros pitchers to reach double digits in strikeouts in a postseason game. Keuchel lowered his postseason ERA to 0.70 in four starts.
Carlos Correa and Yuli Gurriel hit RBI singles in the fourth off loser Masahiro Tanaka, and left fielder Marwin Gonzalez threw out Greg Bird at the plate trying to score on Aaron Judge’s two-run single in the fifth.
Bird homered off Ken Giles with two outs in the ninth, and the closer struck out pinch-hitter Jacoby Ellsbury. Giles escaped a two-out jam in the eighth by strikeing out Didi Gregorius.
Greeted by MVP chants each time to the plate, Jose Altuve had three more hits and with 11 has the most in a team’s first five postseason games since Seattle’s Ichiro Suzuki in 2001.
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