Yankees fans will, justifiably, feel vindictive towards the Houston Astros in the wake of this cheating scandal. Now, fans will argue that the Astros were still cheating in 2019, as well as what happened in 2017. But, as Mike Axisa puts it, the investigation from MLB concluded that the Astros stopped cheating in 2019. So we were still going to fall short of the World Series this year, as the Astros weren’t cheating during the regular, or postseason.
And I feel that we were still going to lose in 2017, as we had every opportunity to beat the Astros, but didn’t.
We STILL Had to Beat the Astros Stellar Pitching
Verlander pitched a COMPLETE GAME in game 2, and pitched 7 shutout innings in game 6. He pitched to the tune of a 0.56 ERA in the ALCS, striking out 21, and giving up 1 earned run, that run coming in game 2. Dallas Keuchel, in 11.2 innings pitched, struck out 18, going 1-1 in the series. Between Keuchel and Verlander, that’s 3 wins right there. And Lance McCullers Jr., had a 4 inning save in game 7. There’s 4.
The Yankees out hit the Astros in the series (.205 team batting average to .187, Astros drove in 19 and the Yankees drove in 21, Yankees got 45 hits in the series to the Astros 40), and the Astros knew what our pitchers were throwing. Even our pitchers had a better team ERA than the Astros team ERA.
But the Yankees were struck out 70 times to the Astros 45. The Astros committed 2 errors in the season, the Yankees committed 6 over the series. The Astros still managed to get the hits when they needed, and the Yankees couldn’t. Judge hit .250 for the ALCS, Altuve hit over .320, with 5 strikeouts to Judge’s 11. By contrast, Gary Sanchez, whom Yankees fans deem completely inept in postseason hitting, struck out fewer times than Aaron Judge (even though he had a much smaller batting average). Didi Gregorius, Greg Bird, and Chase Headley were all more productive than Aaron Judge at the plate during the 2017 ALCS, but Judge drove in the most runs.
All of this and more leads me to believe that the Astros still would have won in 2017, even if they didn’t cheat. Sorry Yankees fans. I’m one of you, but these are my feelings based on facts.