New York Yankees starting pitcher Luis Severino claimed that Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman got “lucky” on his three-run homer in Game 2 of the ALCS.
The Houston Astros have a 2-0 lead in the American League Championship Series, bringing them two wins away from reaching the World Series for the fourth time in six years. Despite that, their wins have been rather close to the New York Yankees, who were unable to capitalize with runners in scoring position through the first two contests.
Houston got off to a 3-0 lead on a home run by third baseman Alex Bregman to the left field Crawford Boxes off of Yankees starting pitcher Luis Severino. That homer turned out to be the difference maker, as the Astros won by the score of 3-2.
After the game, Severino spoke about Bregman’s home run, which he called “lucky.”
“I don’t know. I threw a great pitch,” said Severino. “He hit it at 91 mph. That’s the only thing I’m going to say. And Judge hit it at 106 mph and it didn’t go out. I don’t know, they got lucky.”
Luis Severino calls Alex Bregman’s Game 2 home run ‘lucky’
Severino was referencing Judge’s near home run in the top of the eighth inning that would have given the Yankees a 4-3 lead. The thing is, the baseball died out once it got into deep right field, allowing Kyle Tucker to catch it at the wall.
Ironically, that hit by Judge would have statically been a home run in just one ballpark — Yankee Stadium.
In the postgame press conference, Yankees manager Aaron Boone was asked by SNY’s Andy Martino if he thought hit by Judge had a chance to be a home run. Boone responded by saying that “I thought the roof open kind of killed us.”
Regardless of Judge’s almost-home run, the Yankees have a hitting problem. They have struck out a total of 30 times and stranded 20 base runners through the first two games of the ALCS. That is a problem for the Yankees because realistically, the Astros are keeping them in the games.
The Yankees will head back home for the next three games of the series, where maybe they will get some sort of luck in the form of wins. But, the next two games they lose, they once again fall short of reaching the World Series by the hand of the Astros.