Christian Walker and Jeremy Peña supplied the power, Hayden Wesneski handled the heavy lifting on the mound, and the Astros walked out of Yankee Stadium with a 5-1 win over the Yankees on Thursday night.
The result gave Houston the series and pushed the Astros one game ahead of the Rangers in the American League West with 28 games left. The first-place Astros are now 67-67, and they’ve taken five of their last seven games in the Bronx. Next up, they stay in New York for a weekend series against the Mets that begins Friday at Citi Field.
Wesneski turned in another sharp outing after throwing five scoreless innings against the A’s in his previous start Friday in Houston. Against the Yankees, he carried a two-hit shutout into the sixth before leaving after a leadoff double by Ben Rice. Rice later scored on Cody Bellinger’s sacrifice fly, trimming Houston’s lead to 3-1.
By then, the Astros had already done enough damage against Gerrit Cole. Isaac Paredes put Houston on the board with an RBI single in the third, then Walker broke things open in the sixth with a two-run homer. Walker finished 3-for-4, later adding a double and scoring in the eighth.
Peña delivered the final punch in the seventh, hammering a long home run to left field off Yerry De los Santos to restore Houston’s three-run cushion. From there, the Astros finished the job and left the Bronx with a key win in the standings.
In Other News...
Astros Playoff Push Now Hinges On Four Very Different X Factors
The Astros have reached the stretch run with little margin for error, and the path to October now runs through a handful of very different names. Christian Walker, Dalton Varsho, Bryan Abreu and Peter Lambert each sit in a different part of the roster puzzle, but all four have become important to a club locked in a tight playoff race and searching for steady production as the season enters its final month.
Walker and Varsho are being counted on to supply more consistent offense, while Abreu remains a critical late-inning arm and Lamberts role has taken on added weight as the pitching staff tries to hold together through the grind. For Houston, the challenge is not just getting one or two key players hot, but finding enough dependable performance from all four to keep pace in a crowded race, and the next few weeks will go a long way toward showing whether that balance is there. [Read more 🡒]
Jeremy Pena Hand Scare Leaves Astros Watching One Crucial Question
Jeremy Pena gave the Astros a nervous moment in their game against the Yankees when a 96 mph pitch struck his left hand, but the early signs were as encouraging as Houston could have hoped. X-rays came back negative, and Pena stayed in the game, later scoring a run and adding a home run to quiet at least some of the immediate concern around one of the clubs more important everyday players.
Even with the clean test results, Houston is still treating Pena as a day-to-day case heading into its next game. There are no immediate plans to send him to the injured list, which keeps the situation in a holding pattern for now, but the Astros will be watching closely to see how the hand responds once the adrenaline wears off. [Read more 🡒]
Astros Surge Has Put The AL West Back In Their Hands
The Astros have spent the last week reminding the rest of the AL West why they were never going away quietly. After dismissing general manager Dana Brown earlier this week, Houston won two of three against the Yankees and moved back to the top of the division, where every game now feels like it carries a little extra weight. With the race tightening behind them, the Astros have put themselves in position to control their own path again.
Houstons lead comes with some useful built-in leverage, too. The Astros own the tiebreaker over the Rangers by virtue of winning the Silver Boot series, which could matter plenty if the standings stay close down the stretch. Their magic number to clinch a playoff berth is 28, so while there is still work to do, the surge has turned the division from a concern into something the Astros can manage from the front. [Read more 🡒]