ALCS Game Five: Astros vs. Yankees

[EasyAce]

The Astros are too kind to say the Game Four Yankees looked like they had Abbott catching Costello, the four Marx Brothers in the infield, the Three Stooges in the outfield, Charlie Chaplin coaching first base, Buster Keaton coaching third, and the cast of legendary radio dumb fest It Pays to Be Ignorant in the bullpen. With Allen Funt (Smile! You're on Candid Camera!) managing them.

Whom will the Yankees resemble in Game Five? Will it be sock-it-to-me time in the south Bronx with the Yankees throwing their own buckets of water over each other? Maybe they'd pratfall to the mound, the bases, the outfield, hollering "Live from New York---it's Friday night!!"

Will James Paxton pitch or serve up cloudy with a chance of meatballs? And will tonight's Justin Verlander be the Hall of Famer in waiting who enters Game Five with a lifetime 2.89 ERA when he faces the same team twice in a postseason contest and a lifetime 1.05 ERA in three previous lifetime shots at closing out a postseason series before his short-rest division series fourth game?

[EasyAce]

Well, the Astros are already in the lead thanks to a little Yankee slapstick---an infield hit that could have been called a Yankee error, a one-out walk, a passed ball, a wild pitch, and it's 1-0 Astros, middle of the first . . .

[Gefn]

Sigh.

[EasyAce]

A leadoff bomb by D.J. LeMahieu and a three-run bomb off the foul pole by Aaron Hicks . . . and suddenly the Yankees look like the Yankees again.

4-1 Yankees, still hitting in the bottom of the first.

[EasyAce]

Swinging strikeout, pop out to the infield, side retired, but Justin Verlander isn't looking good and the Yankees look like their old selves.

So far.

4-1, Yankees after one full . . .

[DCPatriot]

Paxon's stuff not impressive from the centerfield camera...the STROS aren't finished.

Have a custom sign hanging in my pool room that says "4 to 1 don't mean sh*t 'round here!"  (in races to 7)   

Same for Game 5

[DCPatriot]

@EasyAce

Who are you rooting for?   

[Gefn]

Swinging strikeout, pop out to the infield, side retired, but Justin Verlander isn't looking good and the Yankees look like their old selves.

So far.

4-1, Yankees after one full . . .

Hurray!

[EasyAce]

Leadoff walk and a two-out single but that's all the Astros get out of it.

4-1 Yankees, middle second . . .

[EasyAce]

First three-and-three half inning of the night.

But still 4-1 Yankees after two full . . .

[EasyAce]

A two-out, bullet line single by Alex Bregman, but a terrific tumbling catch on the foul track by LeMahieu over from first retires the side.

4-1 Yankees, middle three . . .

[EasyAce]

The Yankees go three and three but still lead 4-1 after three full . . .

[EasyAce]

Carlos Correa nails a first-pitch leadoff line single but that's all the Astros get.

4-1, Yankees, middle fourth . .

[EasyAce]

Two-out dying-quail single to left but that's all for the Yankees.

Verlander since the first has looked more like Verlander. Paxton for the Yankees since the first looks more like the guy who pitched up big enough down the stretch.

4-1, Yankees, after four full.

[EasyAce]

A one-out walk to Jose Altuve comes to naught.

4-1 Yankees, middle five . . .

[EasyAce]

Three and three for the Yankees, two more punchouts for Verlander, but still 4-1 Yankees after five full . . .

[EasyAce]

Carlos Correa walks with one out . . . Robinson Chirinos barely misses hitting one out as Brett Gardner catches his inning-ending drive at the left field wall . . . James Paxton throws 112 pitches tonight, the most he's thrown in any game all year long.

And it's still 4-1 Yankees in the middle of the sixth . . .

[EasyAce]

A leadoff foul pop out to first . . . then Verlander strikes out Stanton and Hicks swinging back-to-back on three pitches each!

But it's till 4-1, Yankees after six full . . .

[EasyAce]

A one-out base hit and a walk give the Astros two runners but they can't cash in.

4-1 Yankees at the seventh-inning stretch . . .

[EasyAce]

Two more strikeouts for Verlander and Josh Reddick staying in the game to play right makes a run on a long fly to the right field corner and makes a basket catch before he might hit the wall to finish the frame!

Verlander now has nine strikeouts and hasn't walked a batter all night. But that four-run first . . . oy!

But it's still 4-1 Yankees after seven full . . .

[EasyAce]

Leadoff groundout, back-to-back swinging strikeouts by Zach Britton, and it's still 4-1 Yankees, middle eighth . . .

[EasyAce]

Brad Peacock makes his first postseason appearance and zips through the Yankee eighth in order . . .

But it's still 4-1 Yankees going to the ninth . . .

[EasyAce]

Aroldis Chapman works the ninth . . . . strikeout, fly out, ground out, and we'll see you back in Houston for Game Six!

4-1 your final from Yankee Stadium, the ALCS is now 3-2, Astros . . .

[EasyAce]

Trivia: Game Five is the first time in 1,609 total major league postseason games that both teams scored in the first inning without scoring another run the rest of the game.

[Gefn]

Yankees won, but they won’t win the series. Let’s face it. Since this century started they don’t play so well. IMHO.

[DCPatriot]

Paxon's stuff not impressive from the centerfield camera...the STROS aren't finished.

Have a custom sign hanging in my pool room that says "4 to 1 don't mean sh*t 'round here!"  (in races to 7)   

Same for Game 5

First game in postseason history that all runs scored were in the 1st inning of the game.     

Henceforth, I will not offer any opinions on baseball.     

[EasyAce]

First game in postseason history that all runs scored were in the 1st inning of the game.     

Henceforth, I will not offer any opinions on baseball.     

@DCPatriot
You're about to get a heapin' helpin' of you-ain't-seen-nuthin'-yet: the Astros are doing something tonight that hasn't been done since (drumroll, please) . . . the 1924 World Series.

Tonight Brad Peacock will start (open) Game Six . . . one day after he pitched the final Astro defensive inning of Game Five.

The last pitcher to do that: Firpo Marberry of the Washington Senators. The arguable great-granddaddy of the relief specialist. Who relieved Tom Zachary to get the last out of Game Two (he struck out dubious Hall of Fame Giant Travis Jackson), then started Game Three. (He surrendered three runs---two unearned, one scoring on an infield ground out---in three innings' work.)

In the same Series that the Old Nats won with---the horror!---what we'd call a bullpen game and starters-as-relievers in Game Seven.

Player-manager Bucky Harris, the boy wonder (he was 24), opened with righthander Curly Ogden just to deke Hall of Fame manager John McGraw into loading his lineup with lefthanded hitters . . . knowing full well that Ogden (who was on board fully with the plot) wouldn't face more than two hitters before Harris would lift him---for his Game Four starter George Mogridge, a lefthander. The game ended up tied going to the ninth; Marberry relieved Mogridge for the sixth and, after surrendering a game-tying sacrifice fly, telegraphed hapless Jeurys Familia in the 2015 World Series when a pair of Senators infield errors later in the inning let the Giants take a 3-1 lead.

The Old Nats tied in the bottom of the eighth when Harris's own grounder took the notorious high hop away from Giants third baseman Freddie Lindstrom and sent two runs home. For the top of the ninth, then, Harris reached for his fourth pitcher of the day: Hall of Famer Walter Johnson. Who'd pitch four scoreless until the Old Nats won the game and Washington the city's still-only World Series triumph in the bottom of the twelfth.

And to think the Old Nats bullpenned a World Series win in the same year J. Edgar Hoover was named to run the FBI, Native Americans were finally awarded official American citizenship, and Macy*s held its first Thanksgiving Day parade!

So the question before the house tonight is, will the Astros bullpen their way to the pennant in Game Six, or will the Yankees bullpen their way into a Gerrit Cole-Luis Severino Game Seven showdown?