Can the Yankees Finally Get Past the Houston Astros in the 2022 ALCS?

Since 2015, the Yankees have been eliminated by the Astros THREE times, including a championship caliber team in 2017 that lost to a team that cheated to know every pitch coming.

Fuck the Astros.

On Wednesday night, the Yankees traveled to Houston for Game 1 of the 2022 ALCS. It didn’t go great…

Houston won 4-2 on the backs of three homers and Justin fucking Verlander doing that thing he does where he just wakes up in the morning and decides to become the greatest pitcher in the history of history.

Here’s what Verlander did to the Yankees in Game 1:

6 innings
3 hits
1 earned run
11 K’s
1 walk

Cool. Congrats to Stanton for getting a double off this guy. This game wouldn’t get much more exciting after that.

The problem with this Yankees club is the same problem this team has had every single time the Astros have eliminated them from the postseason: striking out.

Every single player on this team steps into the batter’s box with the goal of hitting a home run to the parking lot. There is no situational hitting for this team. Maybe they aim for sac flys when a runner happens to make their way to third base but it’s still a home run swing.

No one attempts to hit a single. No one cares about just getting the ball in play and forcing pressure on the defense to make a play. And when they do hit a hard ground ball, they rarely sprint to first base. They’re disappointed in themselves and jog it for an easy out.

And then there’s shit like this:

Bro what ru looking for pic.twitter.com/Vfetf6tpYp

— Gabe (@PlayoffTanaka_) October 20, 2022

Josh Donaldson was 0-for-3 with 3 strikeouts. It felt like he didn’t swing his bat once. One of the cockiest players in baseball—who also may or may not be racist as hell—went out there in Game 1 of the ALCS and stood motionless in the batter’s box like the batteries in his Xbox controller died.

This outcome was inevitable when the Yankees decided to bring Aaron Boone back for another season. Disappointing playoff loss after disappointing playoff loss. Boone comes back every year and goes viral for fake-yelling about balls and strikes with an umpire that he probably grabs a beer with when the game is over.

Aaron Boone doesn’t make players better. He doesn’t inspire greatness. He’s not a leader of men. He probably brings decent vibes and the guys like him but you can see the way the Red Sox used to play out of their minds for Alex Cora. They would have jumped in front of a bullet for Cora. Josh Donaldson would stand there with his bat on his shoulders watching the bullet hit Boone.

The only hope the Yankees have to finally get past the Astros is for Gerrit Cole and Luis Severino to do their best Verlander impressions and hold Houston to as few runs as possible because the Yankees will not be scoring a lot of runs this series.

I am already checking out. I am a lifelong Padres fan—starting today. Also loved Brandon Drury.