The Astros Are Showing the Yankees How Far They Have to Go

New York will have to win four straight to advance to the World Series. That seems like a stretch.

NEW YORK — As the dugout emptied around him after the Yankees’ third straight loss to the Astros put their 2022 campaign on the brink, New York righty Domingo Germán did not quite mourn the season. But he watched Houston’s players celebrate and thought about how far away joy like that felt.

“We have a saying,” he said through team interpreter Marlon Abreu. “The team that wins is the one that has fun.” Does he think the Yankees will have enough fun to extend their season?

Germán thought about that. “It depends how we play the game,” he said. “It’s tough.”

Can you blame him for doubting? Winter looms for the Yankees. On Saturday, as they fell 5–0 to the Astros in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series, they seemed to be doing their best to get there quicker.

Facing Cristian Javier, a starting pitcher so low on Houston’s depth chart that he had been used once this postseason, in middle relief, they were one-hit until the bottom of the ninth, down five runs, when DH Matt Carpenter and center fielder Harrison Bader managed a pair of singles. The Yankees went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position. They struck out 11 times, running their ALCS tally to 41 in three games, against 12 hits and nine walks. Right fielder Aaron Judge is 1-for-the-series. Only Bader and left fielder Giancarlo Stanton have more than one hit. The offense that led the AL in runs scored this year with 807, nearly five per game, has plated four in three games against the Astros.

Yankees DH Matt Carpenter was one of just a few Yankees who managed a hit Saturday :: Dennis Schneidler/USA TODAY Sports

No other team in history has compiled such a putrid line through three playoff games. And of course, only one team in baseball history has recovered from a 3–0 deficit to win a seven-game series: the 2004 Red Sox, who beat the Yankees in the ALCS. This ALCS so far qualifies as the most pitiful performance by a group of New Yorkers since Bill de Blasio spent two months running for Congress this summer.

Through a team spokesman, hitting coach Dillon Lawson declined an interview. The team declined to make Stanton available. The players who did speak did not have many answers.

“We need to get hits and score runs and hopefully score more than they do,” said first baseman Anthony Rizzo, who hit a homer in Game 1 and has not done much since. “That’s really as simple as I can put it.”

They could use some work elsewhere, too. With no score and two outs in the second inning, Bader and Judge nearly collided chasing a flyball. Neither caught it. The next batter, No. 9 hitter Chas McCormick, hit a two-run home run. The Yankees never came close to tying the game again. Later, Bader blamed the miscommunication on the crowd’s roar.

They did not have to worry about that by the sixth inning. Ace Gerrit Cole left with the bases loaded to start the sixth. Manager Aaron Boone turned to Lou Trivino, who promptly surrendered a sacrifice fly and a single to bring all three runners home. Fans started streaming toward the exits.

“I understand why there’s boos and why there’s yelling at times,” Judge said. “But we gotta pick it up as a team and that’s gonna take their support, that’s for sure.”

They have not given the fans much to praise. The teams provide a contrast in depth: Astros second baseman Jose Altuve, who leads off, got his first hit of the postseason on Saturday, and left fielder Yordan Alvarez is 1-for-10 in the ALCS, but Houston has received contributions from players such as McCormick, who has driven in three runs this series, and backup catcher Christian Vázquez, who hit the two-run single that finished Saturday’s scoring.

Across the diamond, as Judge slumps, so does everyone else. Carpenter was 0-for-6 for the series with six strikeouts entering Game 3; he hit fifth in the lineup, because there was no one better to put there. Starting shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa has been effectively benched because he can neither hit nor field. His replacements, rookies Oswald Peraza and Oswaldo Cabrera, have combined to reach base once, on a walk.

The bullpens offer more of the same. Righty Ryne Stanek, at best the Astros’ fifth-most trusted reliever, made his postseason debut on Saturday and struck out all three men he faced. The Yankees have no closer and no high-end reliever with pure strikeout stuff. As Boone pondered removing Cole, he realized that his best chance for a whiff was probably the tiring starter himself.

Whenever this season ends, Boone and GM Brian Cashman will have to ask themselves some hard questions about how this team is constructed. They can look at the juggernaut in the visitors’ dugout for a model of how to succeed in October. In the meantime, they will try to win one game. But three games into this series, the Yankees seem far away from the joy Germán saw from across the field. They seem even farther away from the Astros.