NEW YORK — The Astros’ specialty throughout their dynastic run in the American League Championship Series the past six years has been exploiting their opposition’s mistakes — and there might not have been a more telling example than what occurred early in Game 3 on Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.
With two outs in the second inning, Chas McCormick roped a 98.3 mph fastball from Gerrit Cole to right field, where it bounced off the top of the wall and over the fence for a two-run homer.
Yet McCormick was only in that position because Christian Vázquez had reached on a sky-high popup to right-center field that ended with Harrison Bader bobbling a can of corn while trying to avoid a collision with Aaron Judge and his 6-foot-7, 282-pound frame. Vázquez, whose ball had just a .060 expected batting average, was then nearly picked off by Cole as McCormick stepped to the plate, but the catcher’s head-first dive back kept the inning alive.
So instead of leaving the field with a scoreless tie and the prospect of beginning the third inning with the No. 9 hitter McCormick and Jose Altuve — who had extended his record hitless streak to 0-for-24 in his leadoff AB — Cole walked off trailing by two with the Nos. 2-4 hitters awaiting when he returned. If trends suggest results, teams that have taken the lead first are 21-9 in these playoffs.
Bader was charged with an error, but Judge also didn’t heed his center fielder’s call-off until it was too late. Cole looked out to Bader and shouted, “I got you,” after the bang-bang play, which Statcast projected had an 85 percent catch probability. This is Cole’s fourth start against his former team since signing with the Yanks in the 2018-19 offseason, and the only five runs he’s surrendered to the Astros have been via homers.
Dissecting the sequence further, McCormick’s 335-foot homer, which narrowly hooked the right-field foul pole, would have left only two other ballparks besides this one in the Bronx, per Statcast: San Diego’s Petco Park and the Astros’ own home, Minute Maid Park.
As for McCormick, who platooned in center most of the season but has started all three games this series, it was his second homer of this ALCS.
“It means a lot,” McCormick said recently. “Any opportunity I get, even if I don’t play, I’m not going to pout, complain, because this team has one goal and it’s to win a World Series.”