Maybe the Astros are finally human?
Manager A.J. Hinch began the night looking for a way to combat the spotlight being placed on the Bronx and The Bronx Zoo that is the New York Yankees and the Red Sox and managed to pull his team off the mat in the last five minutes, utilizing a patented three-run rally in the fifth to send the American League Championship Series to a winner-take-all Game 6.
The Yankees led 6-1 after five innings, but after two were left in Texas, the Astros responded with five in the bottom of the sixth against the game’s once invincible closer Aroldis Chapman, prompting an emphatic home run to right by Marwin Gonzalez that tied the game.
The Astros added two in the seventh off the hard-throwing Chris Dominguez to jump ahead, 7-6, but the two-run home run by Todd Frazier that they called “a walkoff blast” for their Instagram account put the Yankees ahead 8-7, preventing Houston from getting another hit on a night that was a feast for fly balls off Chapman.
Chapman had not surrendered a hit in the previous 16.2 postseason innings, but aside from a slow roller by George Springer to second in the seventh that bounced off the pitcher’s chest into short right field, he could not escape the Astros’ pressure.
Because of their late rally, the Yankees will host Game 6 in the Bronx at 8:08 p.m. ET on Thursday night. It will be broadcast on TBS.
