New York, NY- It was very “Cole” in the Bronx tonight as the Houston Astros (2-1) took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven ALCS after defeating the New York Yankees (1-2) by a score of 4-1. Starting Astros pitcher Gerrit Cole (1-0) threw seven shutout innings while striking out seven more and helped Houston regain home-field advantage against New York.

“I just feel really blessed to be here,” said Cole who now has now struck out 32 batters in his last three starts. “I was here last year sandwiched in between two Cy Young Award winners, and I was sandwiched between their lockers. This year we still have two Cy Young Award winners and an MVP on the pitching staff on the pitching staff two years in a row. I just feel really blessed.”

Houston set the tone early in the game with a homerun by second baseman, Jose Altuve in the first inning off of starting Yankees pitcher Luis Severino (0-1) to give the Astros a 1-0 lead. It was Altuve’s 12th home run of his postseason career, tying him with teammate George Springer on the Astros all-time list. He also extended his hitting streak to 12 games, a streak that started back in Game 2 of the 2018 ALCS.

“I just try and put the ball in in play and get on base and steal some bases and in the end, score some runs to help my team,” Altuve said

The Yankees would respond by loading the bases against Cole in the bottom of the first, but he worked his way out of it by getting Didi Gregorious to ground out to Jose Altuve to end the inning. Houston would get another much-needed offensive boost in the top of the second inning when outfielder Josh Reddick hit another solo home run to right field off of Severino to increase the lead to 2-0.

“This is a team that you are not allowed to make mistakes,” said Severino who pitched five innings allowing two runs while striking out six batters. “Two bad pitches. Two sliders, and you can’t miss with those pitches right down the middle.”

Those two runs would be all that Cole needed to keep command of the game, even though he was not as crisp as he normally is. In the bottom of the fifth inning after allowing a double to Edwin Encaenacion with two outs, Cole walked Gleyber Torres to put two men on base, but would get Gregorious to hit a long fly ball to the right field warning track before being caught by Reddick.

“Initially I wasn’t worried about it off the bat, and then I turned around and realized where we were playing and so I got a little worried,” said Cole. “Reddick kind of drifted back. When he has a beat on it, it keeps my blood pressure down.”

Cole allowed nine baserunners which included a season high five walks. That was the first time all season he has walked more than three batters in a game. He has not allowed a run in his last three postseason starts improving to 3-0 with a 0.40 ERA. The 2019 AL Cy Young Award candidate has not lost a game in his last 25 starts dating back to late May.

New York would dig themselves a deeper hole in the top of the seventh inning when Boone replaced reliever Tommy Kahnle with Adam Ottavino to face the top of the Astros lineup. It was Ottavino who gave up the game tying homerun to George Springer in Game 2. After Springer drew a walk, Jose Altuve hit a single to move Springer to third base. That would bring Boone back out of the dugout to replace Ottavino with Zack Britton.

That move caused a major shift in the game as Michael Brantley hit a ground ball to Yankees first baseman DJ LeMahieu who would immediately run towards third base to catch Springer on his way home. Springer pulled off a brilliant baseball move by waving Altuve to third and Brantley to second before eventually being tagged out by catcher Gary Sanchez.

“George executed it flawlessly,” Astros manager AJ Hinch told Houston Style Magazine Sports. “being able to stay at kind of that 45-foot mark and not run into an out was huge. The batter-runner Brantley getting to second, made him intentionally walk Bregman, and set up our inning. And it was a good play all the way around.

New York loaded the bases with an intentional walk to Alex Bregman and Altuve would score from third on a wild pitch from Britton with Yuli Gurriel up to bat. Gurriel hit a sacrifice fly to drive in Brantley to make the score 4-0. Cole would come in and get the top of the Yankees lineup out which would be his last inning. Reliever Joe Smith would come in and relinquish a home run to red-hot Yankee second baseman Gleyber Torres and that would be the only run New York would get all night.

The Astros would send out Roberto Osuna to pitch the ninth inning and he got three straight outs to stun the sellout crowd of 48, 998 in attendance.

Houston will now wait for the officials at Major League Baseball to decide whether or not there will be a Game 4 or not as the weather has been predicted to get very bad on the East Coast on Wednesday.