It was just one win — but opener felt bigger than that for Yanks
It was just one game for the Yankees at Minute Maid Park, so often a house of horrors for them over the past seven seasons. But in the end, it was like a perfect game for them to start their season. It was because of the way it started and the way it ended and just about everything that happened in between. In the first of 162, the Yankees got a win as good as they will get over the next 161.
The game that started with them in a 4-0 hole by the bottom of the second inning ultimately provided a storybook finish — for the Yankees, anyway — in the bottom of the ninth when the new guy, Juan Soto, threw out Mauricio Dubón at home plate trying to score the tying run. It was a good throw by Soto, known more for his bat than his defense, and a better tag by catcher Alex Trevino, and when Alex Bregman grounded out right after that, the Yankees were 1-0.
This was the ballpark where the Astros had won Games 6 and 7 of the 2017 American League Championship Series after the Yankees led that series 3-2. This was the ballpark where Jose Altuve had hit the walk-off home run to end the 2019 ALCS, and where the Astros had won two of the four games when they were sweeping the Yankees two years ago in yet another ALCS. This was an opponent, the Astros, who have dominated their league the way the Yankees once did, playing in seven straight Championship Series and four World Series, two of which they won.
But on this one day, it was the Yankees for whom just about everything broke right after they were in that early hole. Soto was on base three times, knocked in a run and made that throw to save the game. Aaron Judge doubled and
scored. Nestor Cortes, starting on Opening Day because Gerrit Cole, the Yankees’ ace, is hurt, pitched like an ace after being down 4-0, keeping his team in the game. Oswaldo Cabrera, starting at third because DJ LeMahieu is hurt, hit a home run, while another new guy, Alex Verdugo (moving from the outfield at Fenway Park to the Bronx the way Johnny Damon once did) made two fine plays in left field.
