Watching Chase Headley hit his head on the wall in foul territory diving for a pop-up in the ninth inning of Tuesday night’s 6-3 win over the Astros was an uncomfortable visual for the Yankees.
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Trailing 1-0 in the second inning, Didi Gregorius’ sacrifice fly and Chase Headley’s RBI single gave the Yankees a 2-1 lead.
Sabathia shook off the first-inning homer, retiring eight of the next 10 Astros without allowing a hit.
Sabathia (6-8) produced his best start since mid-June, allowing just two runs on four hits and two walks with five strikeouts over 6 2/3 innings.
Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller combined for 1 1/3 innings of scoreless relief to close out the game. Sabathia has allowed 31 runs – 29 earned – in his last 35 innings, spanning six starts. Along the way, Sabathia had five strikeouts – passing Mel Stottlemyre (1,257) for seventh place on the Yankees’ all-time list. The Yankees offense had a decent night themselves, as the Yankees came away with a 6-3 win.
It was the Astros who entered the series with the best pitching in the majors since May 1 with a 3.36 ERA. That in and of itself might be enough for ownership to refuse to sell more assets.
In the eighth Austin Romine’s RBI double scored Headley from first for the game’s winning run. Brian McCann led off the second with a single and advanced to third on a double by Mark Teixeira, whose bat is starting to grow warm.
Sabathia’s ERA during the first three innings of games this season has been 2.82, a number that bloats to 6.02 after the third. After a Gregorius ground out moved the runners up a base, Castro was intentionally walked to load the bases. 6-9 hitters combining for 10 hits and eight RBIs.
A lazy fly ball to left field is what Bregman produced, but by then he’d already made two excellent plays at third base, a positional he played for the first time during his time in the minor leagues this season.
In front of a throng of gathered media Alex Bregman officially changed area codes Monday to Minute Maid Park as the first-round draft pick’s meteoric rise through the minor leagues culminated with his call up to the Houston Astros. I think Valbuena is a fringe everyday player, who should be playing most days, and he certainly has the flexibility to do so given his ability to play both third base and first base. Bregman will get his fair share of reps, but I expect his role to be limited to either third base or DH (or a spot start at shortstop in order to give Carlos Correa a half-day off). It was the Yankees’ eighth win in the past 10 days, and they’ll go for a series sweep tomorrow.
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PHILLIES 4, MARLINS 0: Philadelphia’s Jeremy Hellickson dominated Miami for a second straight start, throwing six innings of one-hit ball.
