2022 MLB Playoffs: Astros go up 3-0; Yankees face elimination Sunday

By Deesha Thosar
FOX Sports MLB Writer

NEW YORK — The Yankees brought their shovels to Houston earlier this week, when they dug themselves into a 2-0 series deficit. On Saturday, with the ALCS back in the Bronx, they found more room to dig. 

Now, all they have left to do is jump in the hole. 

The Yankees were shutout by the Astros 5-0 in Game 3 on Saturday at Yankee Stadium. Their embarrassing loss in front of a sellout crowd of 47,569 featured a bungling offensive approach, questionable managerial decisions from Aaron Boone and an Astros team that can smell ineptitude a mile away.

"Back’s against the wall now," Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo said. "As a competitor, as a baseball player, it sucks."

"We got to find a way, and it starts by trying to grab one tomorrow," Boone said.

Now the Yankees will try to do the near-impossible, a feat only one MLB team has accomplished out of 39 clubs that plummeted to a 3-0 series hole. Only the Boston Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS have won a best-of-seven series after trailing none other than the Yankees 3-0. As such, the Yankees are on the brink of being eliminated in five consecutive ALCS trips, and it’s all because, well, the Astros are just the better team.

Houston is 6-0 this postseason, setting a club record for consecutive playoff wins. With a win Sunday, the Astros would sweep a seven-game set for the first time in franchise history and advance to the World Series for the fourth time in the past seven years.

"Every postseason win is awesome," catcher Christian Vázquez said. "We're one win away to a World Series. So we will get after it tomorrow, and we got five more wins to get a championship."

On Monday, when the Yankees beat the Guardians in Game 5 of the ALDS, the Yankee Stadium atmosphere felt more like the Bronx Zoo. On Sunday, when the Yankees will play an elimination game down 3-0, everywhere in the ballpark besides the Astros dugout will likely feel more like a funeral. 

For the Yankees, the ugliness began early Saturday. Just when it looked like Gerrit Cole was going to head back to the dugout after a clean, seven-pitch frame, the Astros made the Yankees pay in a costly second inning that saw a routine fly ball put runs on the board. 

Vázquez sent a two-out pop fly to right-center field just as Yankees center fielder Harrison Bader and right fielder Aaron Judge ran to get under the ball. Apparently hearing Bader's call for the ball too late, Judge stepped in front of Bader just as the ball bounced into and out of Bader’s glove. Vázquez made it safely to first on what was ruled an error by the center fielder. Later, Bader said both he and Judge "got a little spooked," and the loud crowd noise factored into the misplay. Judge disagreed and shouldered the blame. 

"We’re both going for it, both calling for it, and then at the last second, I hear him," Judge said. "I’m trying to get out of the way, so I think I definitely messed him up on that play. I gotta take responsibility for that. He’s the center fielder. When he calls it, I gotta get out of the way, and I just couldn’t do it quick enough."

Cole, attempting to get out of the inning after the error, then served up a two-run home run to the next batter, Chas McCormick, who clubbed it to the short porch in right field. Cole has coughed up a home run in nine straight postseason games, tied with Yu Darvish for the longest streak in MLB history.

The sudden and shocking turn of events gave Houston an early 2-0 lead on a night when Astros right-hander Cristian Javier was, once again, dominating New York’s lineup. On June 25, the last time Javier pitched in the Bronx, he threw seven no-hit innings and struck out 13 Yankees. 

On Saturday, Javier carried a no-hitter into the fourth before Giancarlo Stanton broke it up with a one-out double to right field. Still, Javier got out of that inning. And the next. And the next. He limited the Yankees to one hit, just that Stanton double, and struck out five batters across 5⅓ innings and 84 pitches.

In the sixth inning with the Yankees trailing 2-0, Boone opted to pull Cole on 96 pitches with the bases loaded and nobody out. With the game and the season on the line, the Yankees manager went to one of his weaker bullpen arms, Lou Trivino, who proceeded to allow all three of his inherited runners to score.

"I was just not ready to come out," Cole later said, adding that he thought he had enough stamina left to at least finish the inning.

To be sure, pulling Cole and plugging in Trivino were odd decisions with New York’s back against the wall. But it didn’t matter much who completed that messy sixth inning — and whether all three runs scored or not — if the Yankees were going to continue sleeping at the plate. 

In the first three games of the ALCS, the Yankees hit .128 (12-for-94), struck out 41 times and scored just four runs in 27 innings. And if Astros left-hander Framber Valdez hadn’t committed two errors on one play, allowing the Yankees to score two sloppy runs in Thursday’s Game 2, that New York run total would be cut in half. 

By the end of the eighth inning Saturday, when Judge grounded out and left two men on base, the Yankees’ offense was painful to watch. That much was evident from Yankees fans booing their team louder than ever and shuffling out of the stadium when the Bombers had more than six outs to go. Afterward, there wasn’t much for the Yankees to say except to try to stay positive.

"At times, things might feel like a mountain," Bader said. "You can’t get to the top without starting at the bottom. There’s nine innings being played tomorrow. We know it’s in front of us."

Deesha Thosar is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets for the New York Daily News. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.