Yankees vs. Indians live updates: Scores, highlights, and results from ALDS Game 3

The Astros were unable to end the Red Sox’ season, but we might still get an elimination on Sunday. The Yankees are trying to hold on and avoid a sweep just like the Red Sox, while the Indians would like to thank the Astros for creating this opportunity for Cleveland to be the first team in the ALCS.

It’s Game 3 of the (other) ALDS, and it’s now in New York. Can the Yankees make it a 2-1 series, or will the Indians clinch tonight? Let’s live blog.

As usual, if you want to read what happened earlier, scroll down to the bottom “1st inning” header and work your way back up.

This is it for the Indians -- their last three chances to tie the game up, or else there is going to be a Game 4 in New York on Monday. Well, weather permitting, anyway. Cleveland will send Francisco Lindor, Jason Kipnis, and Jose Ramirez to the plate, all three of which will be glad that Masahiro Tanaka is no longer pitching, but his splitter has been replaced by 103-mph heat, so, you know. Nothing is easy.

Lindor struck out against Chapman in Game 2, and he does so again here in Game 3. Cleveland is down to their final two outs.

Kipnis fared better than his teammate, as he laced a single up the middle after swinging through a couple of Chapman fastballs earlier in the at-bat. The Indians have the tying run on in Kipnis and the go-ahead run at the plate in Jose Ramirez.

Ramirez is hanging in there as best as he can, but he also looks like he’s a Chapman changeup from screwing himself into the ground forever.

Oh noooooo, Ramirez made contact toward third base, and Todd Frazier stopped it, but lost it on the transfer: Kipnis and Ramirez are both safe, and now here comes Jay Bruce, without a splitter in sight.

Jay Bruce got to a 2-0 count, but then kept swinging at balls until Chapman had him where he wanted him. Now it’s all up to Carlos Santana, who comes to bat with the tying and winning runs on base.

As the broadcast notes, even if the Indians don’t win, Chapman working hard to get five outs is a positive result: the Yankees’ pen will be rested for Monday thanks to Masahiro Tanaka’s strong start, but hey, you take what you can get, Cleveland.

Santana stayed alive for seven pitches — Chapman would throw 34 of them — but he ended the game with a fly out. The Yankees win, 1-0, and live to try to even the series up on Monday.

David Robertson joins the fun to face Austin Jackson — who flies out in a hurry — and then Michael Brantley. Brantley worked a full count and then a walk, which apparently made Girardi nervous: here comes Yankees’ closer Aroldis Chapman to get the five-out save.

Chapman seems preoccupied with Brantley at first, as three of his first four throws were to first instead of the plate. Considering he got Yan Gomes down to an 0-2 count on the pitches he did throw, and Brantley has a bum ankle, it’s an odd strategy.

Gomes, the hero of Game 2, ends up whiffing on a high fastball. Sometimes, when you throw 103, you don’t need to have a good strategy. Urshela vs. Chapman went just about how you imagined it would, and we’re on to the bottom of the eighth.

Jason Kipnis juuuuust missed making a wonderful basket catch, but instead, Brett Gardner has a double to leadoff the inning for the Yanks. With Chapman going to five outs and the top of the order coming up for Cleveland, a potential insurance run is no small thing.

Cleveland knows this, and it’s why Tyler Olson has been pulled for righty Joe Smith. He’ll face Aaron Judge, who is still looking for that elusive first ALDS hit.

Man, the umpire really does not seem to know where Aaron Judge’s knees are, and it helped contribute to yet another strikeout. Gary Sanchez went down on the same high fastball Judge did, except this one was even higher. Or maybe it was in the same place, but Sanchez is shorter, idk.

The followup was an intentional walk to Gregorius in order to face Castro, and that plan worked as Castro weakly grounded out to third base.

Speaking of poor decisions, someone needs to pull Jose Ramirez aside and explain to him what a splitter does. There might not anyone happier in the Indians’ lineup for Tanaka to eventually be replaced by a reliever, just because they won’t have a splitter.

To Ramirez’s credit, he got a 10-pitch at-bat out of Tanaka, and while he eventually made an out, the righty is that much closer to taking his splitter back to the dugout.

Okay Jay Bruce might also need Tanaka out of the game, good lord.

Let’s use the seventh-inning stretch to answer an important question.

WELP, Greg Bird just took Andrew Miller deep to leadoff the bottom of the seventh inning, and the Yankees have a 1-0 lead. That’s only the second homer Miller has given up to a lefty all year, which is very much baseball being baseball when you consider all the jams Carrasco escaped earlier.

Tyler Olson comes in to replace Miller with one out, and Chase Headley pinch-hits, but to no avail. Aroldis Chapman and David Robertson are now both up in the bullpen, as Joe Girardi has a lead to protect and still needs to get six outs.

Roberto Perez leads off the inning with a single, but Giovanny Urshela lines out to keep Perez at first. It’s up to the top of the lineup to actually do something with this rare baserunner.

Lindor nearly went yard there, but again, Aaron Judge is nine feet tall, so he was able to reach over the wall and rob it by jumping, and this game remains scoreless. The Yankees’ pen should get moving, though, because Tanaka is starting to leave pitches hanging in the strike zone.

ahahahaha that dope everyone hates, Zack Hample, tried to catch that almost-homer, but Aaron Judge did instead.

Honestly I’m surprised he didn’t shove Judge out of the way to take it for himself. Shame on MLB for giving this guy attention, by the way.

The Yankees got their leadoff hitter aboard again against Carrasco, but Brett Gardner immediately hit into a double play. Judge is up again, still looking for his first hit of the series. He didn’t get it, but he did draw a walk: Carrasco is up to 78 pitches, has thrown just 56 percent strikes, but it still feels like he’s cruising thanks to the timely grounders and whiffs.

Carrasco didn’t get either of those things against Gary Sanchez, who hits a ball on the screws to give the Yankees two baserunners. Now, it’s cleanup hitter Didi Gregorius up to bat, once the first meeting at the mound ends, and just when Carrasco is having trouble hitting the spots he wants to.

Gregorius walks, and Terry Francona has seen enough: he must be reading along with y’all. In comes Andrew Miller, acquired from the Yankees last summer for the previous Indians’ push for the World Series, to try to secure the third out and get out of this situation with the scoreless standoff intact.

Starlin Castro swung at the second pitch and popped it up, so, mission accomplished by Miller.

Tanaka gives up his first walk of the evening, as Carlos Santana learned a valuable lesson about not swinging at pitches that are at his ankles. Jackson puts a ride into a fly ball to right, but it’s safely within Judge’s glove, and Santana remains at first. Brantley is up with another shot to remind people of how valuable he would have been in last year’s postseason... but instead, he hits into an inning-ending double play, and Tanaka is through five scoreless.

That’s strikeout number seven for Carrasco, at the expense of Greg Bird. At least you didn’t get hit by a pitch again, Bird. He was the first out of a 1-2-3 inning for Carrasco, who has given up just one hit, allowed three baserunners, and has seven punch outs through five.

Tanaka is actually ahead of Carrasco’s pace, as the first out of the fourth inning was the game’s leadoff hitter, Lindor. I didn’t get a chance to see Game 1 of the Cubs-Nationals series because I was busy covering Indians-Yankees, so this is my first low-scoring game of the postseason, and my brain is still readjusting.

Aaron Judge had to jump for a liner to right field, which should give you an idea of how high up it still was, but he couldn’t get it: Kipnis runs into third with a triple, and all of a sudden there is a runner in scoring position for Jose Ramirez.

Ramirez is just 1-10 in the ALDS so far — the Indians are up 2-0 despite losing Encarnacion in Game 2 and getting basically nothing from Ramirez and Kluber to this point. They are truly a frightening opponent. Tanaka doesn’t seem to care, though, because he keeps getting Ramirez to miss on those pitches down and away.

Ramirez fouled a high fastball against the leg with a protective guard on it, except he didn’t hit himself in said guard. Cleveland’s trainer is out there as he tries to walk it off, and of course fans are booing because they’ve been mildly inconvenienced for 10 seconds.

Ramirez once again swings and misses on a low splitter, and strikes out for the second time in two at-bats. Kipnis’ last hope is Jay Bruce, who also did not look great when he faced Tanaka earlier, and guess what, the second time went exactly the same.

Now Cleveland I don’t want to tell you how to play baseball, give you’re arguably the best team in the game, but maybe stop swinging at splitters that are hitting the ground. This isn’t an exaggeration: they are repeatedly swinging at pitches that only reach the plate because they roll there after hitting the ground.

Aaron Judge struck out on what probably should have been ball four for someone who is nine feet tall, but at the same time, you have to protect that plate, and it was close enough on a full count to do so. He might have a point with his look of disapproval, though, as the strike zone has been pretty reliable both horizontally and vertically until that pitch.

Gregorius is just 1-13 this postseason, with the lone hit coming in the Wild Card Game. He finally snaps the ALDS hitless streak with a single over the second baseman’s head, and Carrasco now has to face Starlin Castro.

Carrasco, by the way, has thrown 51 pitches, just 28 of them strikes. It’s kind of amazing he has just the one walk given all those balls, but he’s managed to recover when he loses control of the plate appearance, and that’s why the Yankees have yet to score. And still have yet to score, as Starlin becomes strikeout victim number six.

Michael Brantley is once again in the lineup as the designated hitter, as Edwin Encarnacion’s ankle sprain is keeping him out of Game 3 and likely the rest of this series, even if it gets to five. The ALCS does’t begin until Friday, though, so if Cleveland takes care of business on Sunday, he’ll have plenty of time to rest his ankle up and come back to the lineup he meant so much to all season.

Tanaka’s splitter sure is splitting, and as Tom Verducci points out, there just aren’t many splitters in MLB these days. So, a good one like Tanaka’s is going to wreck the opposition when he’s on. In a related story, that’s a 1-2-3 inning for the Yankees’ right-hander, who has thrown just 37 pitches so far.

Carrasco walked Ellsbury on six pitches, bringing up underrated bottom-of-the-order danger Aaron Hicks with no outs. Ellsbury is looking like he wants to steal, but Hicks grounded into a double play before that threat could be realized, and Carrasco has a clean slate once more in time for the top of the Yankees’ order.

For all of Carrasco’s efficiency in terms of pitches per batter, he’s not throwing many more strikes than balls: 21 strikes, 16 balls so far. This could come back to haunt him later, but maybe he just needs to throw more pitches to earn some more separation. As of now, he’s through three scoreless and just one batter over the minimum.

The drop on Tanaka’s pitches look just as good in the second inning as they did in the first, and Jay Bruce heads back to the dugout after just three pitches. Carlos Santana made Tanaka work a bit, getting to a full count and fouling a pitch off, and then he got the first hit of the game for either side with a single to right.

Tanaka’s pace has slowed a bit, with Austin Jackson also working the count against the Yankees’ hurler. A double play helps keep that from escalating further, however, and you can’t complain about 27 pitches over two innings.

Didi Gregorius hits a ball to Jason Kipnis in center field, which still feels weird to type. I mentioned Tanaka’s low pitch count already, but Carrasco is right there: 13 pitches for four outs. And now 18 pitches for five outs. Greg Bird was hit by a pitch on his foot, giving the Yankees their first baserunner of the game.

Carrasco gets out of it with — you guessed it — a strikeout, and now it’s Tanaka’s turn in this weird AL postseason game where neither team is scoring runs for some reason.

It’s Masahiro Tanaka on the mound with the Yankees’ season on the line. Tanaka was a disaster until mid-June: He had a 6.34 ERA after his June 17 start, and opponents were batting .293/.342/.568 against him. From that point on, though, Tanaka dropped his season ERA down to 4.74, which doesn’t seem great, but again, it was 6.34.

He was much more like the Tanaka the Yankees expected and need during the second half, and he reminded audiences of as much when he struck out Francisco Lindor to begin Game 3. Jason Kipnis quickly followed Lindor back to the dugout after popping out. Jose Ramirez fared a little better, getting Tanaka to throw six pitches of the 11 pitches he tossed in the first inning, but Ramirez struck out all the same.

Carlos Carrasco is here trying to finish off this sweep. Carrasco missed the 2016 postseason due to injury, and while his absence didn’t hurt in the ALDS or ALCS, by the time the World Series came around and pitches like Corey Kluber and Andrew Miller were clearly out of gas, Carrasco’s absence was felt.

He reached 200 innings for the first time in his career, struck out 226 hitters, and produced his best ERA+ as a full-time starter. New York can hit -- they hit Kluber hard two days ago — but Carrasco is the kind of arm that can shut any lineup down on the right night.

Brett Gardner leads things off, still looking for his first hit of the ALDS. And after a flare to shallow left, he’s still looking. That brings up Aaron Judge, who is also looking for a hit, as he hasn’t had one since the AL Wild Card Game against the Twins. Judge keeps getting two strikes on him and having to battle from behind, and he is yet to win those battles. Here, he loses another, going down on strikes on a slider where he guessed very wrong. Gary Sanchez whiffs on the same pitch in the same way, and we’re on to the second inning.