HOUSTON — It is among the oldest passed-down-through-the-generations sayings in baseball.
Never get fooled by what you see in March or September.
But after watching a mostly sleep-inducing product during the first five months of the season, Yankees fans can be forgiven for focusing squarely on September this year — and even dreaming about what might be possible in future Octobers.
With prospect Jasson Dominguez living up to the hype, hitting his second two-run homer of the series, the Yankees moved to 3-0 in September with a 6-1 victory over the Astros on Sunday night in front of a sellout crowd of 41,514 at Minute Maid Park.
The Yankees (68-69), starting five rookies for a third straight night, swept the Astros (77-61) at Minute Maid for the first time since Sept. 27-29, 2013 (Andy Pettitte threw a complete game in his last career start during that series).
The rookies totaled a homer, two doubles and four RBIs on Sunday night and drove in nine runs in the three games for the Yankees, who outscored the Astros 17-7 in the series and have won six of their last seven games.
Dominguez, 20, who homered off Justin Verlander in his first career at-bat Friday night, turned on a 1-and-0 slider from Cristian Javier and hit a moonshot to right for a two-run homer that snapped a 1-1 tie in the sixth. He became the first Yankees rookie to homer in two of his first three games since Aaron Judge in 2016.
“I knew he [wasn’t] going to give me any fastballs, just breaking balls,’’ Dominguez said. “So I sat on it.”
Said Yankees starter Michael King: “He’s lived up to every ounce of hype that I’ve heard. I’ve heard he was otherworldly and he comes out here and just dominates. I was more impressed with just his poise. You come up as a top prospect, you think a guy could easily have a big ego, and he comes up and he’s very humble and he’s very quiet, honestly, being like a very good rookie. And then when he goes out there and produces, it makes you love him even more.”
Aaron Boone said Dominguez just looks “comfortable” at the plate: “You watch him up there . . . Sean Casey talks a lot about slowing things down, letting go of anxiety when you’re at the plate. Anxiety is your enemy as a hitter and he’s the opposite of that. He goes up there real cool, calm and collected with a grin on his face. There’s no tension in what he’s doing, and you sense that.”
Javier (9-3, 4.65), who allowed one run and three hits in 17 1⁄3 innings against the Yankees last season, including 5 1⁄3 scoreless innings in Game 3 of the ALCS, took a shutout into the sixth. Thirteen straight Yankees had been retired when Oswaldo Cabrera, who exceeded rookie limits last season, singled with one out. He scored on DJ LeMahieu’s double to left-center to tie it at 1-1 before Dominguez homered.
Gleyber Torres’ 24th homer, a 435-foot shot off the train tracks in leftfield, made it 4-1 in the ninth. Rookies Austin Wells and Oswald Peraza added RBI doubles later in the inning.
King, auditioning for a possible rotation spot next season, was good again. The righthander, stretched out to 69 pitches, was economical, lasting five innings in which he allowed one run and five hits. King (4-5, 2.88), who even while emerging as an elite reliever the last couple of seasons has never lost his desire to be a big-league starter, struck out four and did not walk a batter.
Tommy Kahnle retired all six batters he faced and Jonathan Loaisiga got Jose Altuve to ground into an inning-ending 1-4-3 double play with two runners on base in the eighth.
The Astros’ Mauricio Dubon reached on an infield single with one out in the fifth and took off for second. He was cut down by Wells, whose throwing arm was a question throughout his minor-league development.
King credited Wells for his effectiveness, impressed even more so in that Wells had never caught him before: “He had a great game plan going in. He’s phenomenal adjusting and a great communicator. I loved working with him.”
Wells, who caught all three games here, said of the praise he’s received from the pitchers: “It gives me all the confidence in the world to have the guys on the mound be able to trust me right off the bat. To get the three wins, that’s huge confidence as well. Being able to limit a good lineup like that, that was huge.”
Said Boone: “Obviously, nothing’s gone how we wanted to this year, but we’re playing for a lot in there. You never know what can happen and we just want to go out and play our best baseball and hopefully make some noise this month and who knows . . . With all these guys, we’re going to see bumps and growing pains along the way, but to come into here against a really good team in a great environment and have them handle themselves the way they have is really encouraging.”
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