Yankees vs. Astros 2017 live results: Score updates and highlights from ALCS Game 1

We’re finally here. After the Wild Card round and the League Division Series took literally forever — the games averaged three hours and 44 minutes each — we’re down to two teams left in each league. We’ve got the Astros, who specialize in offense and are a two-way danger when their starters are right taking on the Yankees, who specialize in pitching and are a two-way danger when their lineup is right.

Houston had a 127 OPS+ this year, 22 points higher than the second-place team — that would be New York, by the way — and a 97 ERA+, right below the league-average. They didn’t have Justin Verlander for most of the season and they’re able to cut out the worst of their pitchers for the postseason, so they’re better than that, but still: they have a clear strength that brought them here. The Yankees, meanwhile, finished the season with a 121 ERA+ that ranked fifth in the majors and trails only the Dodgers among the remaining postseason teams. This is going to be some unstoppable force vs. immovable object action.

As usual, to catch up on the live blog from the beginning, scroll down to the “1st inning header” and work your way back up.

The Yankees are down to their final three outs, and will have Castro, Hicks, and Bird up against Giles, who is trying to finish off a five-out save. The broadcast notes that the Yankees have only been shutout twice in the postseason in two previous postseasons — failure to score here would make it three.

Castro does his part to add to history, striking out on Giles’ 23rd pitch of the evening. Just two outs remain for New York.

Aaron Hicks quickly falls to 1-2, with the second strike a wicked slider inside. He stays alive fouling off high-90s heat on consecutive pitches, and Giles is suddenly up to 29 pitches still needing two more outs. Dear lord that was a filthy slider -- Hicks never had a chance, especially since he thought it was a heater.

Greg Bird is now the last hope for the Yankees in Game 1. The pitch that brought the count to 1-1 was Giles’ 32nd, a season high. And number 33 bounces off the foul pole — it’s 2-1, Astros. Imagine if Bird hadn’t been thrown out at the plate earlier on that perfect throw from Marwin Gonzalez?

Here’s Jacoby Ellsbury, pinch-hitting for Matt Holliday. He’s quickly down 1-2 to Giles, who attacked him with three consecutive high-90s heaters.

The homer leads to naught, as Ellsbury whiffs on the fourth pitch, closing out Giles’ five-out save and giving the Astros a 1-0 lead in the 2017 ALCS. See y’all tomorrow for Game 2!

Keuchel’s night is over, and it was alright.

Chris Devenski is in now, and he knows a thing or two about strikeouts. He had 100 of them in 2017 while throwing 80-2/3 innings, and his only real weakness seems to be the long ball. Who isn’t that true for in 2017, though?

Gardner walks by juuuuust checking his swing, and Devenski is already out of the game with Aaron Judge stepping to the plate, representing the tying run. Here comes Astros’ closer Ken Giles, in for a five-out save.

Gardner makes it to second when Giles spikes a pitch that McCann can’t bring in, and now it’s a 3-2 count to Aaron Judge. You know, something different. Judge grounds out and doesn’t move Gardner along to third in the process, so here’s Gary Sanchez to try to drive Gardner in from second and finally put New York on the board.

Sanchez punched out three times against Keuchel, so as hard as Giles throws and as wicked as his slider can be, the young Yankees’ backstop has to be pleased with the change.

Sanchez walks, and now it’s first and second with Didi Gregorius up, repping the go-ahead run.

Gregorius strikes out after fouling off a pitch that he probably should have crushed. And if not “should,” then definitely “could have.” Giles escapes, the Astros are still up 2-0, and the Yankees are down to their final three outs.

It’s the top of the lineup for the Astros, which means they have a decent shot at adding an insurance run. Well, relatively decent: they still have to attempt to score off of the Yankees’ bullpen to do that.

Springer strikes out. Reddick strikes out. As I was saying. Altuve, of course, gets a hit, because that’s pretty much all he’s done all postseason. He’s 11-for-19 through five games. Correa can’t capitalize, though, so we’re off to the top of the ninth.

Keuchel is indeed still in, and gets Hicks to ground out before moving to a full count on Bird. Keuchel gets the strikeout on pitch 108 — Holliday has to be his last batter, right?

By the way, that strikeout was Keuchel’s 10th, putting him in company with Nolan Ryan and Mike Scott as the third Astros pitcher to record at least 10 in a postseason game. Keuchel gets Holliday to pop out before I can finish that sentence, and he’s through seven scoreless.

The Yankees go to the bullpen first, replacing Tanaka with Chad Green. It’s a good thing the Astros already scored two runs, because New York’s bullpen, if you’re not familiar, is the best one left in the postseason.

Thanks for helping my point, Green, by retiring three of four to end the seventh.

Keuchel has actually thrown far more pitches than Tanaka — he’s at 88 as of this writing — but he hasn’t yet given up a run so it’s been a little harder to notice. If it takes him some work to retire the Yankees in this inning, though, it could be his last before the bullpen comes in.

Sanchez punches out again, his third strikeout in three plate appearances, and Keuchel is at 92 pitches. Didi Gregorius strikes out on a pitch that bounced in the dirt, but man, it looked good coming out of Keuchel’s hand.

Carlos Correa makes a wonderful play at shortstop, and Yuri Gurriel does it justice with a lovely swiping tag at first that included a spin move. Keuchel is at 97 pitches, which means the Astros can begin the seventh inning with him if they so choose, and have someone warming ready to replace him as needed.

Josh Reddick lined out to Tanaka, but mostly because he nailed Tanaka with it. The Yankees checked on Tanaka, and he’s staying in the game to face the middle of the order of the best lineup in baseball.

Altuve got another hit, yawn. And then he stole second on a splitter in the dirt that Sanchez didn’t immediately corral. You have to love a player who either hits for power or immediately rectifies a situation when he does not.

You know when a batter looks at strike three go by and doesn’t bother to wait for the umpire to say it’s strike three because they know with every fiber of their soul that it is indeed strike three and they just let it go by? Correa just did that.

Marwin Gonzalez grounds out, and that’s the end of the sixth.

Okay so Altuve is amazing and should probably win MVP but that doesn’t mean he’s perfect. He loses a ball here as he’s trying to get a double play and instead gets nothing, so the Yankees now have two on and no outs to open the fifth.

The good thing about Keuchel, usually, is that he is capable of getting a strikeout or a grounder in whatever situation he needs one in. Here, Frazier hits a ball to center field, but not deep enough for anyone on base to take advantage of it. So, Keuchel succeeded without succeeding, and now there’s one out, meaning Houston is a double play grounder away from escaping this unscathed.

Brett Gardner is hard to double up, but remember when I said Keuchel can also get a strikeout when he needs one? He got a strikeout. Two outs, and Aaron Judge is up. This is still a dangerous situation for Keuchel and the Astros.

And Judge gets a hit! Except it doesn’t matter, because there is a play at the plate, and Greg Bird gets thrown out trying to score. It’s still 2-0, Astros... well, maybe. Here’s the challenge.

The call stands. Great throw by Marwin Gonzalez, and while Bird gave it an effort, McCann had the better move at the plate. 2-0, Astros.

Bregman, McCann, and then the top of the lineup and Springer due up in the bottom half of the frame. Tanaka looks like he’s settled back down, as he retires Bregman and McCann with ease. Springer is taking more work -- he earns a 3-2 count on the seventh pitch of the at-bat, which pushes Tanaka to 71 on the evening.

The eighth pitch goes to the warning track, but right into Hicks’ glove, so it remains 2-0 Houston.

Gary Sanchez is called out on strikes to start the inning, and then Gregorius works a full count. He should have had a laser grounder past the second baseman there, but the problem is that Jose Altuve is the second baseman in this situation. He’s real good, folks.

There goes Tanaka’s no-hitter, thanks to Jose Altuve running hard. And then Altuve keeps on running hard, stealing second base — the Astros have something going here with Correa at the plate and Altuve in scoring position.

Correa hits a single, and Altuve scores all the way from first. 1-0, Astros, and there’s just the one out with Gonzalez now up. While Marwin made an out, it pushed Correa into scoring position, and that ended up paying off when Yuli Gurriel shot a ball up the middle into center, scoring Correa. 2-0, Astros, and Tanaka is suddenly at 54 pitches before getting through four.

Beltran grounds out to end the inning and the bleeding, but the damage was done.

Matt Holliday is here tonight since the Yankees are actually facing a left-handed starter. Playing that platoon matchup doesn’t pay off in the first plate appearance, though, as Holliday softly chops a ball right at Keuchel for the first out.

Before I can even finish typing that, Todd Frazier grounds out to third base, and Keuchel is nearly through the third inning with just 33 pitches on the evening.

Brett Gardner is taking a little longer than the others, but that’s kind of his thing. He picks up a hit, the first of the game, on a pitch Keuchel left over the plate. That brings up baseball’s biggest boy, Aaron Judge.

The Indians went right at Judge with a clear plan of attack. Keuchel, so far, seems to be taking things a bit more carefully with Judge, trying not to leave anything enticing too close or in the zone. It worked this time, as Keuchel got Judge to swing at a 3-2 slider that dropped well under his bat.

Gary Sanchez just took an Alex Bregman foul ball to the beans. That poor dude: it’s the second time he’s been thwacked there in this postseason. This one didn’t come with an accompanying incredible facial expression, though.

Bregman flies out deep to center, where Tal’s Hill used to be. [pours one out for the architectural oddity]

Masahiro Tanaka makes short work of his former catcher, Brian McCann, and here’s George Springer again. He strikes out, and we seem to be in the middle of a well-pitched American League postseason game in 2017? Weird.

The Yankees have Starlin Castro, Aaron Hicks, and Greg Bird due up in the top of the second. Castro grounds out to Bregman and does it in a hurry, on the third pitch. Keuchel gets Aaron Hicks to pop up in foul territory, but it hits a girder, so it’s just a foul ball instead of out number two. It’s okay, though, because then Keuchel threw a pitch that is basically impossible to hit to strike Hicks out. He’s at 25 pitches through 1-2/3 innings.

Bird also goes down by way of the K, and Keuchel is rolling to kick off the ALCS.

Here’s Marwin Gonzalez, who is much better than you remember him, unless you just watched him help to dismantle the Red Sox. In which case, he is as good as you remember him. Gonzalez lines out to center here, though, and then Yuli Gurriel quickly follows with a groundout.

That brings up former Yankees’ slugger Carlos Beltran, who was dealt to the Rangers last summer and signed with the Astros for 2017. He’s not the hitter he used to be, not even close, but the 40-year-old still managed 43 extra-base hits in 129 games, and his bat is still capable of crushing a mistake. Tanaka isn’t throwing mistakes in this game, though, and Beltran flies out on a 3-0 pitch to end the second.

Here we go! Dallas Keuchel has a history of pitching well against the Yankees, and it’s a small sample, but boy oh boy are you going to hear a lot about it if he pitches well. Brett Gardner goes down on strikes to open up the game, and I’m reminded of how lucky we are that Joe Buck is announcing: Buck is like the only play-by-play announcer in the postseason who understands you do not always need to be talking just because you’re announcing. The game can tell its own story, too.

Aaron Judge draws a walk, and you have to imagine there is no one happier to be away from Cleveland’s pitching than he is, given his 16 strikeouts during the ALDS. Gary Sanchez strikes out instead to make it two down, and here’s Game 5 hero Didi Gregorius, fresh off of singlehandedly booting Corey Kluber early from the game the Indians needed to win to be here instead of New York.

Gregorius grounds out, and the Astros now come up to see if they can score in the first inning for the fifth time in five postseason games.

It’s George Springer, Josh Reddick, and Jose Altuve due up in the bottom of the first inning, facing Masahiro Tanaka. The right-hander pitched an absolute gem last time out against Cleveland, but it’s worth noting he struggled on the road this year, posting an ERA (6.48) more than twice what he produced at home. That doesn’t mean he’s doomed by any means, but it’s something to watch out for, especially against this never-ending lineup.

Tanaka walks Springer, who takes a pretty comfortable lead off first base as Reddick gets into the box. That lead wasn’t big enough, as Reddick grounds out and is safe at first on a fielder’s choice.

Altuve puts a ride in one to center, but it’s not quite deep enough, and Reddick stays at first. Two outs, and here’s Carlos Correa, the cleanup hitter. On that note, here’s some postseason history for you:

A fun thing about baseball is that you always think you’ve seen it all, and then something that’s never happened before happens right in front of you.

Tanaka recovers from the leadoff walk, getting Correa to ground out to short, and that’s the end of the Astros’ first-inning scoring streak.