On This Day in Astros History: José Altuve Walks Off the New York Yankees

It is an auspicious day for the Houston Astros. On October 19, 2022, Houston begins their ALCS with the New York Yankees, but it was just three years ago that they ended the Yankees’ season in the ALCS on the same date. 

They were similarly matched teams then too. That year the Astros won 107 games en route to the American League's top seed, the Yankees won 103 and were the AL's no. two seed.

As of Oct. 19, 2022 things stand much the same, the Yankees are the two-seed and the Astros are the one-seed, albeit their regular season win totals were 99 and 106 respectively.

Houston hopes things will go the same on the field too. That day in 2019 the Astros took a 4-2 lead into the ninth inning, looking to clinch the AL Pennant with closer Roberto Osuna coming in to pitch.

But three batters in, he had given up a single, then a two-run homer to DJ LeMahieu — tie game. As the Astros went to take their cuts in the bottom half of the ninth, they were shortly down to two outs before George Springer worked a walk to keep the inning alive.

Then José Altuve stepped to the plate. He got a 2-1 slider from Yankee-closer Aroldis Chapman that hung on the outside part of the plate, and he didn't miss.

The ball ended up above the Crawford boxes in left-center, caroming off the wall and back onto the field where Altuve celebrated around home plate with his teammates.

The Astros had vanquished the Evil Empire, and they'll hope it wasn’t for the last time.

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