Astros Knock Rays Out of Playoffs

There has been a lot of thrilling baseball so far in the 2019 playoffs. That trend continued on Thursday when the Houston Astros eliminated the Tampa Bay Rays from the playoffs with a 6-1 win in the fifth and deciding game of the divisional playoff series at Minute Maid Park. It was another masterful effort from Astros starting pitcher Gerrit Cole. The win will send the Astros to the next round where they will play the New York Yankees. The Astros will have the home field advantage because they had a better record than the Yankees in the regular season.

The Yankees will be a very tough test for the Astros. New York has a distinct advantage heading into the series with the Astros because the Yankees have been sitting around doing nothing after their dominant sweep over the Minnesota Twins in the first round of the playoffs. This means that the Yankees have been able to set up their pitching. Meanwhile, the Astros will not be able to use Gerrit Cole in the first game of the playoffs because he had to pitch the deciding game against the Rays. In a perfect world, the Astros would like to have Cole and Verlander start the first two games. However, that is not going to happen.

Most people thought that the Yankees and Astros were on a collision course. This is because they were the two best teams in the American League during the regular season. Houston won 107 games and New York won 103. It is not known who the Astros will go with in terms of a starting pitcher for the first game of the American League Championship series. They have not released that info as of yet. Houston is most likely going to wait until the last possible minute to reveal their starting pitcher. This will give New York a very minimal amount of time to prepare.

Both the Astros and the Yankees had very powerful offenses during the regular season. They were second and third in the league in home runs. However, Houston has the better pitching. It has been shown many times that pitching will win playoff games. Therefore, the edge has to go to Houston in this series. Having four of the games played in Houston will be another big benefit for the Astros. Only time will tell if they will be able to make the most of it.