The New York Yankees fell into a 0-2 hole in their American League Championship Series against the Houston Astros on Thursday night. Oh, but they were so close were they to tying things up before heading back to The Bronx.
Aaron Judge, the Yankees’ star right fielder and the odds-on favorite to win the AL MVP, came to bat in the top of the eighth with a chance to do some real damage. The tall righty stepped up with one man on as New York trailed 3-2, launching a fly ball high into the air that Astros outfielder Kyle Tucker leaped up and robbed before it could clear the right field wall at Minute Maid Park.
But wait, isn’t the porch out in Houston pretty short? Is there even a ballpark in which that ball could have cleared the wall?
Well, yes, there actually is a park in which that ball could have gotten out, and Judge is pretty familiar with it.
The only stadium in Major League Baseball in which Judge’s flyout could have cleared the fence was Yankee Stadium, which as you all know, has the shortest porch in all of baseball. ESPN’s Sarah Lange was the first to point that out, really sticking it to Yankees fans as they grieved from a nauseating statistic.
Houston, of course, held on to win the game 3-2, with Ryan Pressly closing the door on Anthony Rizzo, Gleyber Torres and Chris Carpenter in the top of the ninth inning. Now the Yankees will head back to New York, forced to win four-of-five if they hope to advance to the World Series for the first time since 2009, in what could be Judge’s final season in pinstripes.
