It completed the first day of the playoffs in the American League with the divisional series that led the Cleveland Indians and Houston Astros who won victories against the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, respectively.
Nothing changed in the Yankees’ sweeping game in the playoff starts as they beat the Yankees to a 4-0 win and put the 1-0 lead to the best of five.
Starter Trevor Bauer silenced rookie outfielder Aaron Judge and the rest of the Yankees’ offense, and right fielder Jay Bruce produced three runs for the Indians to start looking for their first World Series title in 69 years.
Bauer (1-0) struck Judge three times, two of them without swinging. He allowed just two hits in six innings and two-thirds work on the mound.
That was all that allowed the Indian pilot, Terry Francona, who decided that it was time to give prominence and responsibility to the bullpen of the team, the best currently in the competition.
It was later demonstrated by reliever Andrew Miller and closer Cody Allen to finish the shutout of three hits that the Indians gave.
The combination of tight pitching, excellent defense and timely and winning batting allowed the Indians to start their way by trying to end the longest running drought in major leagues.
Indian rider Terry Francona was surprised to pick Bauer as the starter of the first game over stellar Corey Kluber, and the right-hander, perhaps best known to cut his little finger while repairing his dron during the previous postseason, had a brilliant performance who kicked off Cleveland with his right foot in the 2017 playoffs.
Kluber, who won 18 regular season games, will be the starting pitcher for the second game to be played Friday against veteran southpaw CC Sabathia, who will work with the Yankees.
After defeating the Minnesota Twins’ mates in the wild card game, Judge homered in their debut in the finals, the Yankees came in with a certain amount of momentum and confidence that they could do more resistance to the team that finished the game. regular season with the best mark of the American League, but realized that they are currently an inferior team.
While second baseman Jose Altuve with three solo homers headed the Astros’ explosive batting that beat the Boston Red Sox 8-2.
The win allows the Astros to take the 1-0 lead in the series to the best of five games and the second game will be played today, Friday, on the same stage as Minute Maid Park.
The Astros will have left-hander Dallas Keuchel on the mound tomorrow, while the Red Sox will take Drew Pomeranz out as their starter.
Altuve, who went 4-3 with three runs scored and three RBIs, became the first Astros player to get three home runs in a single playoff game.
The Venezuelan slugger threw the ball out of the part in the first episode against left-hand opener Chris Sale, prescribed the same medicine in the fifth and seventh in front of right reliever Austin Maddox.
Altuve, before the delusion of 43,102 spectators who filled the stands of Minute Maid Park, had to leave the bench to greet.
Next to Altuve, third baseman Alex Bregman also threw the ball out of the park in the opening entrance that allowed to open the scoreboard.
Designated batter Evan Gattis and right fielder Josh Reddick also helped the Astros offense by going 3-2 with a pair of runs scored each.
While solid pitching came from starter Justin Verlander (1-0) who worked six full innings to space six hits with two allowed runs, walked two and retired three hitters via the punch.
Four other relievers, led by Chris Devenski, Will Harris, Francisco Liriano and closer Joe Musgrove took the last nine outs of the game without making any concessions to the Red Sox batting.
The loss was Sale (0-1), who held only five innings after being punished with nine hits, including three homers, seven clean runs, a ticket and fanned out three rival batters.
