A power outage has brought about a quick end to the New York Yankees’ postseason.
Houston largely has kept the Yankees from hitting home runs, entering Game 4 on Sunday night having allowed only a pair of solo shots as they inched ever so closer toward their third ALCS win over the Yankees in six seasons.
“We got to shorten up a little bit and try to put the ball in play,” Giancarlo Stanton said. “We all have to make mid-at-bat adjustments in order to put the ball in play. The game’s extremely fast and they’re reading swings, reading body language. You got to be able to counteract that.”
New York had scored 18 of its 24 postseason runs on 11 long balls. The Yankees have been even more homer dependent than during the regular season when they drove in a major league-high 50.8% of their runs on four-baggers; the big league average was 39.8%.
The Yankees are hitting .128 in the ALCS (12-for-94) having struck out 41 times.
“I would love to have everyone be .300 hitters and 30-homer guys,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Hard in this day and age to not be a team that hits the ball out of the ballpark to be an elite offense, and certainly in the postseason, regardless of what people say, the home run ball is enormous. … You got to understand situationally that you’ve got to be able to do little things and shorten up in certain situations.”
New York hit a major league-high 254 home runs during the season. Houston allowed 134 — only the San Francisco Giants at 132 gave up fewer. The Astros had allowed just four during a 6-0 postseason start, helping overcome a .229 batting average.
“We’ve got a great offense. I think we just got to go back to what got us to this position and what helped us win a division and we’ll be where we want to be,” said Aaron Judge, who started 1-for-12 in the ALCS. “If that’s contact or that’s moving guys over or if it’s coming up with that big hit, we’ll figure it out and be where we need to be.”
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