After a brief nap, Michael Pineda is awake.
Big Mike dazzled on Monday night in Houston, giving the Yankees a 2–1 win over the Astros in what was possibly his best start of the season. Pineda threw 103 pitches over seven one-run frames, allowing five hits and a pair of walks while striking out eight. The Yankees have won seven of nine, and Pineda has now yielded one run over his last 13 innings after letting up 10 in the 11 innings before that.
Don’t look now, but Yankees starters have nine pretty good outings, if you grant CC Sabathia an exception for a couple tough breaks down the stretch last Thursday.
On offense, the Yankees were able to squeak out two runs off Dallas Keuchel. Chase Headley knocked in a run in the fifth, and Romine provided the knockout punch in the eighth. Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller, now the set-up man and closer, respectively, took care of that lead.
The Play: Romine’s go-ahead double in the eighth (+.247 WPA)
Allow me to preface with this—Romine has sneakily been really good this season.
With Dallas Keuchel on pitch No. 94 in the eighth, and the somewhat-slow Chase Headley on first with no outs, Romine fouled off a slider, took a two-seamer for a ball, fouled off another two-seamer, then got a piece of a slider. In a 1–2 count, the backup catcher was sitting off-speed, and got a low slider at 77 mph. He got the barrel on the ball, sending it off the bat at 103 mph, and 397 feet into center, well over the head of Carlos Gomez.
This allowed Headley to score easily, and handed the game off to 2/3 of the late No-Runs DMC to finish the game.
Notes
— Headley and Romine were pretty damn good, combining to go 4 for 6 with a run scored and a pair of RBIs.
— Dellin Betances struck out the side in the eighth to earn his 26th hold of the season. Miller picked up save No. 8 in the ninth.
— Andy Pettitte threw batting practice, which was cool.
— Before the game, the Yankees traded Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs for four players, including Adam Warren. Brian Cashman said on his post-trade conference call that the Yankees were not changing course and becoming sellers, and could even buy if the right offer falls into their lap. They’re still doing their due diligence, though, and have begun to shop Ivan Nova, according to reports.
— Aroldis Chapman, in his press conference, said he’d like to return to the team in the off-season as a free-agent. “God willing.”
The Quote
Andrew Miller: "There's no feeling in here that it's time to move on or give up on this year."
— Jared Diamond (@jareddiamond) July 26, 2016
The Highlight: Unbreakable Michael Pineda hit by line drive, stays in the game
He literally did not care.
Next Up
The Yankees will aim to go four games over .500 against the Astros in Game 2 of this three-game set on Tuesday night at 8:10 p.m. ET. It’s CC Sabathia, trying to rebound from two straight bad outings, against Doug Fister. It should be a good matchup, but not nearly as good as Tanaka—McCullers on Wednesday.
Photo: Thomas Shea / USA Today Sports; Video: MLBAM