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AL wild card: Dallas Keuchel and two home runs power Astros past Yankees

The Houston Astros live to play another day, beating the New York Yankees in the AL wild-card game and advancing to the ALDS to face the Kansas City Royals. The Yankees couldn't muster much offense against Astros starter Dallas Keuchel, and two Astros longballs off Masahiro Tanaka set the Yankees up to lose 3-0.

(AP)
(AP)

• Colby Rasmus struck first for Houston, launching the first pitch of the second inning off Tanaka deep into the right-field seats. Rasmus hit three homers in the Astros' last three games, so he's been hot. The homer did seem to change the tone of the game, as Tanaka looked dangerously dominant in the first inning. He never seemed the same after Rasmus' blast.

• Carlos Gomez, like Rasmus, took a big swing at the first pitch of an inning and, like Rasmus, deposited it into the stands. Gomez's homer came in the fourth inning and gave the Astros a 2-0 lead.

• Astros starter Dallas Keuchel is a favorite to win the Cy Young this year, but he had a few things working against him before Tuesday night's game. First, he was pitching on three-day's rest and, second, he's a much better pitcher at home than on the road. Neither affected Keuchel here, though. He pitched six shutout innings, allowing just three hits and striking out seven on 87 pitches. Given his rest, it was about the best-case scenario for the Astros. Keuchel finished 2015 with 22 scoreless innings against the Yankees.

(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

• Yankees leadoff man Brett Gardner just couldn't get anything going against Dallas Keuchel. He struck out three times in three at-bats against the Houston starter. Then he grounded out in the eighth inning against reliever Will Harris and literally hung his head while Yankees fans booed him.

• Masahiro Tanaka wasn't horrible, but the Yankees sure would have liked to see something more than five innings and two homers allowed. He walked three and gave up four hits. Again, not a disaster but not Keuchel-level either.

• And then there's Alex Rodriguez, but let's talk about him in the next section.

The best chance the Yankees had to score against Keuchel came in the bottom of the sixth. Didi Gregorius singled to start the inning and they eventually had two on and two out after a Carlos Beltran single. Up came, Alex Rodriguez as the go-ahead run. Astros manager A.J. Hinch came out to talk to Keuchel, but Keuchel wanted to stay in. With a chance to get the Yankees back in the game, A-Rod swung at the first pitch and flied out to center.

When he flied out with two runners on, it was another example of A-Rod's postseason struggles. According to ESPN Stats and Info, that made A-Rod 0-for-his-last-19 with runners in scoring position during the postseason.

And then there's this:

• The arrival of the Houston Astros, who proved themselves to be a big-swinging, homer-hitting team ready for the postseason. Even more now, we'll hear about Houston's prowess with the long ball (they were second among MLB teams this season).

• Some Yankees fans will harp on the umpiring Wednesday. Twitter was peppered with complaints about home-plate umpire Eric Cooper. And they seemed somewhat warranted to the TV audience, according to ESPN's tracking. Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Brandon McCarthy tweeted, "Yankee hitters' approaches are getting punished by this loose strike zone." But Yahoo Sports' Jeff Passan argued it's not as bad as people are huffing about.

• Yankees disappointment. Fair or not, a Yankees postseason loss is sure to draw attention. They'll be "failures" to many fans with a short perspective — even though you could make a case that just making the postseason was a huge accomplishment for this 2015 Yankees squad.

The Astros advance to the ALDS to face the Kansas City Royals, the No. 1 team in the American League. Game 1 is at 7:30 p.m. ET Thursday at Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium. The Royals have confirmed Yordano Ventura (13-8, 4.08 ERA) as their Game 1 starter. The Astros haven't made a call yet, obviously, but Collin McHugh (19-7, 3.89) would most likely be their starter. The Astros took the season series against the Royals, 4-2.

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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!