Aaron Judge, Yankees Blasted by Fans, Twitter After Game 3 ALCS Loss to Astros

The New York Yankees will have to make history to save their 2022 season after a 5-0 loss to the Houston Astros in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series.

New York has dropped the first three games to the Astros, having been outscored 12-4 thus far. Saturday was supposed to be the Bronx Bombers' chance to get back in the series with Gerrit Cole making his first start as the series shifted to Yankee Stadium.

Things got off to a rocky start when Harrison Bader's missed catch on a Christian Vazquez fly ball into center field with two outs kept the second inning going. Chas McCormick's opposite-field homer on the third pitch he saw from Cole gave Houston a 2-0 lead.

That turned out to be plenty of run support for Cristian Javier and the Astros bullpen. Javier allowed just one hit in 5.1 shutout innings.

The Astros blew things wide open with three runs in the top of the sixth inning.

Starting pitching has been the biggest difference in the series thus far. Houston's top three starters—Javier, Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez—have combined to allow three runs (one earned) with 25 strikeouts and eight hits allowed over 18.1 innings.

Aaron Judge and the Yankees offense has struggled to get going all postseason. Even in their ALDS victory over the Cleveland Guardians, they hit a collective .182/.273/.370 with 53 strikeouts in 154 at-bats.

As you would expect from a prolonged stretch of poor play, fans and analysts had a lot to say about the Yankees needing to win four straight games to reach the World Series.

This season really has been a tale of two halves for the Yankees. They were on pace for 113 wins at the All-Star break when the offense had a .776 OPS and averaged 5.4 runs per game. The pitching staff had a 3.08 ERA and averaged 9.02 strikeouts per nine innings.

In 70 games after the break, the Yankees were a .500 team (35-35) averaging just 4.4 runs per contest with a 3.60 ERA.

The Yankees were able to overcome their issues in the ALDS against a Guardians team that didn't have much power or depth in the lineup. Houston has been the best team in the AL all year, and it's showed throughout this postseason.

The Astros have won each of their first six playoff games. If they can run that streak to seven, they will be in the World Series for the fourth time since 2017.

Lance McCullers Jr. will make his second start of the postseason for the Astros on Sunday. Nestor Cortes will take the mound for the Yankees.

Game 4 of the ALCS will be played at 7:07 p.m. ET from Yankee Stadium.