The NY Yankees and the Houston Astros are playing the AL Wild Card game on Tuesday night and the game will be on TV from ESPN and has a live stream online from the WatchESPN website. The game starts up at 8 pm ET and will be from Yankee Stadium in New York as Masahiro Tanaka and Dallas Keuchel meet for the pitching duel in the MLB playoffs for the American League.
The Yankees are coming into the playoffs slumping a bit, but so are the Houston Astros. The Yankees will host the game after clinching home field for the wild card and they will pitch Tanaka against Keuchel, who has had a Cy Young level season for the Astros. Both teams rely on power and that could come into play here on Tuesday night.
Carlos Beltran is a previous playoff hero in his career and the Yankees will be looking for him to come out strong. Joe Girardi has some lineup options to think about based on the pitching matchup and Joel Sherman writes at the NY Post that the team could start John Ryan Murphy and Chris Young over Brett Gardner and Brian McCann to help get the matchups on their side. Those moves could end up being the key either way for the Yankees whether they win or lose.
The Yankees just lost CC Sabathia to alcohol rehab and while the timing could not be worse, the team likely was not expecting him to start much in the postseason anyway after struggling this season. Beltran was signed to help the team win a game like this and he has been hitting the ball well as of late and could be key for the Yankees if they want to advance. Sabathia likely would have been in the bullpen, but he is now away from the team and the Yankees will have to use another arm, as he likely will not be back for any of the playoffs no matter how far the team advances.
The Astros won the season series against the Yankees, taking four of the seven games against the team, but that likely will not be much of a factor in this game. It's a one-game playoff to see who will advance to play against the Kansas City Royals and that ALDS Series will start later in the week. The Astros are a completely different team at home than on the road, as they are way over .500 at home and way under on the road. Keuchel has been amazing at home with a 15-0 record, but he is 5-8 on the road this season and that could play a part in this game on Tuesday.
Prediction: Yankees win over Astros.
Check here for the schedule for the wild card game and TV coverage for the matchup.