“Manhattan is so big that I’m just another Joe,” he said Monday.
That should change now, after Keuchel’s latest turn as an extraordinary Joe against the Yankees, throwing six shutout innings Tuesday to lead the Houston Astros to a 3-0 victory in the American League wild-card playoff at Yankee Stadium.
Colby Rasmus and Carlos Gomez hit solo homers to give the Astros an early lead, and they added another on Jose Altuve’s run-scoring single in the seventh. That proved to be plenty for Keuchel, whose third shutout performance against the Yankees this season was finished by with three hitless innings from relievers Tony Sipp, Will Harris and Luke Gregerson.
When Brian McCann grounded out for the final out, the Astros poured out of the dugout to celebrate, while most of the Yankees filed out of the dugout and up the tunnel to the clubhouse, their first postseason appearance since 2012 a short one.
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| A high pitch count early in the game did not prove to be a problem for Dallas Keuchel, who at one point retired 10 straight batters. |
“At that moment, you almost want to blink a couple times and wake up and have that not be the reality,” left fielder Brett Gardner said. “You want to have a couple more cracks at it.”
It’s uncertain how much that might have helped the Yankees, whose offense slowed over the second half, sputtered down the stretch and screeched to a halt against Keuchel.
The Yankees, through their ups and downs, showed during the regular season that they could muster the right approach and execution to beat some of the best pitchers in baseball: Max Scherzer, David Price, Cole Hamels, Jacob deGrom, Chris Archer and Felix Hernandez — often in convincing fashion.
But they have done nothing with Keuchel.
In three games against the Yankees, including two in the Bronx, he has thrown 22 scoreless innings, allowing 12 hits and ,two walks and striking out 28.
“He’s Greg Maddux from the left side, with a little better slider,” said Alex Rodriguez.
Though the Yankees had not scored a run against Keuchel in the regular season, they preferred to face a pitcher they had seen, confident that they would figure out a successful approach. On Tuesday, it was to look for pitches in a particular part of the strike zone — up — and lay off anything else. The problem was that Keuchel rarely obliged.
“I came back and watched an at-bat and I’m doing what I’m trying to do,” said Chase Headley, who struck out and grounded out against Keuchel. “I’m swinging at pitches I want to swing at. I was executing what I was trying to do, and I was going back to the dugout.”
Through five innings, Keuchel allowed only two base runners. He walked Chris Young in the first and allowed a single in the second by Greg Bird.
The Yankees’ one real threat came in the sixth, when Didi Gregorius poked a single just beyond the reach of the diving Altuve at second base and Carlos Beltran laced a two-out single. That brought up Rodriguez, which brought the crowd to its feet and Astros Manager A.J. Hinch out of the dugout to visit Keuchel.
“The stadium was rocking, that’s for sure,” Keuchel said. “A-Rod’s coming up — doesn’t get any more exciting than that.”
Keuchel said that after Rodriguez hit a liner to right that George Springer ran down in his previous at-bat, he thought if he threw a cutter up and in, Rodriguez might get under the pitch.
“Luckily, that’s what he did,” Keuchel said of the lazy fly ball to center that retired Rodriguez and the side. “But I was playing blackjack there, and it paid off.”
The atmosphere at the Stadium, which has been sleepy much of the season, was electric at the start. By the end of the night, the crowd had turned on the home team, forcefully booing Brett Gardner, who struck out three times, after he grounded out in the eighth and every Yankee thereafter who made out.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/sports/baseball/dallas-keuchel-dominates-yankees-as-astros-win-wild-card-game.html?_r=0
Related article: Dallas Keuchel brilliant; Astros beat Yankees to advance to ALDS - USATODAY
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