Yankees Feel Open Roof, Wind Swayed Game 2 After Another Night of Whiffs
The Yankees came this close to changing Game 2 of the American League Championship Series when Aaron Judge went the opposite way off Astros reliever Bryan Abreu in the eighth inning on Thursday.
Judge hit a ball 345 feet and 106.3 miles per hour – hard and far enough to excite Yankees fans, but not enough to clear Minute Maid Park’s short right field wall. Houston right fielder Kyle Tucker caught the fly ball as he crashed into the wall, and the Yankees never scored again in a 3-2 loss.
Afterward, New York manager Aaron Boone said that he thought Minute Maid’s open roof – and the gusts of wind it invited into the ballpark – impeded the trajectory of Judge’s ball, which would have only been a home run at Yankee Stadium, per Statcast.
“I think the roof open kind of killed us,” Boone told reporters. “I think it's a 390 ball. I think it was like 106 at whatever. When I went out to take [starter Luis Severino] out, we noticed it a lot with Tucker's ball. The base hit he got to right, it kind of looked like it just went and stopped, and then I think [Judge’s is] a homer all the time.”
Boone went on to say he felt wind blowing across the field. And while Judge told reporters that he hit the ball to the wrong part of the park given the conditions, Severino said the Astros “got lucky” after the team’s third baseman, Alex Bregman, homered off him on a pitch that went 360 feet at 91.8 miles per hour.
While the Yankees believe wind made an impact on the series, so have all the breezes their offense has created by swinging and missing.
New York has struck out 30 times over two games against the Astros, who got 25 whiffs from starter Framber Valdez on Thursday night. Justin Verlander induced 17 on Wednesday.
Houston, meanwhile, has only struck out eight times across two games.
So while the Yankees may be lamenting the outcome on Judge’s ball, their lineup has bigger problems to worry about as they get ready for Game 3 in the Bronx on Saturday.
“They're about as tough as there is to score against,” Boone said of the Astros. “But we got to figure out a way, and it takes all of us from a gameplan standpoint to every guy in that lineup just doing their part to make it a little more difficult on 'em.”
