Juan Soto, Yankees roll to another comeback win over Astros

HOUSTON — They have played just two games in the young season, but the Yankees have wasted no time packing in the drama. 

For the second time in as many days, the Yankees staged a comeback victory against the Astros, this time waiting six innings to score before clinging to a lead and then running away with it in a 7-1 win on Friday night at Minute Maid Park. 

On the way there, Carlos Rodon walked a tightrope in his season debut, Juan Soto survived an injury scare, Gleyber Torres did not, Oswaldo Cabrera piled up four hits and three RBIs and in the eighth inning, a nail-biter turned into a laugher. 

Cabrera and Soto led the way in the late-game heroics, getting the Yankees off to a 2-0 start to the season and guaranteeing at least a split of the four-game series with the Astros. 

The Yankees were held scoreless through six innings by Astros right-hander Cristian Javier before they pounced in the seventh, eighth and ninth against Houston’s bullpen.

By the end of the night, chants of “Let’s go Yankees” rang out in enemy territory. 

After Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells drew one-out walks in the seventh, Cabrera delivered a single the other way to tie the game.

Then, after Torres was hit on the right hand by a 93 mph fastball (which forced him out of the game in the bottom of the inning), Soto drew a bases-loaded walk to make it 2-1. 

The Astros threatened to tie it back up or regain the lead in the bottom of the seventh, but Soto delivered a sliding catch in right-center field to help get out of a jam, flashing his defense for the second time in as many games.

Soto, who went 3-for-4 with an RBI and a walk, showed no ill effects of the apparent cramping he experienced in the middle of the third inning, when he was tended to by Aaron Boone and a trainer but stayed in the game. 

In the eighth, the Astros gifted the Yankees a pair of throwing errors, opening the floodgates for a four-run inning.

Cabrera finished it off with a two-run single back up the middle, highlighting another strong night for the Yankees No. 9 hitter after he had hit a game-tying home run on Opening Day. 

For good measure, Giancarlo Stanton joined the party in the ninth inning with a bullet home run to left-center field. 

Rodon played with fire across 4 ¹/₃ innings but where he might have gotten burned last season, he somehow escaped relatively unscathed in his 2024 debut.

The left-hander gave up just one run (in the first inning) despite allowing five hits and three walks, instead stranding seven men on base with some timely pitching, including four strikeouts.

He had to labor through four jams, as his drenched-with-sweat jersey indicated (he got a new one after three innings), but lived to tell about it. 

Four of the five hits Rodon allowed came with two strikes.

The other came on an 0-1 count. 

Before Rodon even stepped on the mound Friday night, Boone had insisted that he wasn’t putting too much weight into the $162 million pitcher’s first start.

Coming off a brutal first year in pinstripes, Rodon was in need of a positive start to this season, but Boone didn’t want to view it that way. 

“It would certainly be nice, but I’d like it not to be imperative,” Boone said before the game. “The focus I’ve had with him is keep logging the work and the days. Over time, if we do that, the talent’s gonna speak for itself. Every fifth or sixth day, if he continues to go to the post, he’ll be in a good spot. I feel like his stuff’s there. The work’s there. The foundation’s there. 

“Of course I want him to go out and deal and dominate, pitch great. But it’s too long a season to be married to one result. Continue to focus on the work, because he’s done that since the start of the offseason and his foundation is good right now.” 

Besides limiting the damage, a positive for Rodon in his season debut was his fastball velocity. He averaged 95.7 mph and flashed a fair share of 98s.

Rodon also mixed in 14 cutters, a new pitch for him this year, and used one to strike out lefty slugger Yordan Alvarez to escape a scoreless fourth inning after he had allowed back-to-back singles to open the frame.