Yankee fans got what they came for on Tuesday night in The Bronx.
They saw the Yankees get a dose of revenge against Houston — and they got to scream at the Astros.
Not to be overlooked, the Yankees’ 7-3 victory was their fourth straight and got them back over .500 for the first time in nearly a month.
In the Astros’ first visit to Yankee Stadium since their sign-stealing scheme that led them to the 2017 World Series title became public, fans spent most of the night chanting “You’re a cheater,” “a–hole” and —mainly — “F— Altuve.”
“The fans let them have it,’’ Giancarlo Stanton said.
There was also some baseball mixed in, and the Yankees took the lead for good in a wild bottom of the sixth.
With the bases loaded and two outs, DJ LeMahieu hit a slow roller to third, where one of the night’s other primary targets — Alex Bregman — charged and made an errant throw to first.
Giancarlo Stanton celebrates with Aaron Judge after belting a two-run homer in the first inning of the Yankees’ 7-3 win over the Astros. Corey SipkinGleyber Torres and Kyle Higashioka scored easily and Rougned Odor was waved home. Odor and Houston catcher Martin Maldonado got tangled at the plate. Odor scored, but was forced from the game with a left knee injury, while Maldonado also exited.
Stanton’s RBI single — one of his four hits on the night — made it 7-3.
For much of the night, though, the game almost seemed a side note to the real action, which was the COVID-limited sellout crowd of 10,850 taunting the Astros.
The scandal cost manager A.J. Hinch and GM Jeff Luhnow their jobs and the Astros organization a fine and lost draft picks, but the players emerged unscathed due to immunity granted to them by commissioner Rob Manfred for their cooperation in MLB’s investigation that ended in January 2020. That probe found the Astros had used an illegal electronic sign-stealing scheme during their 2017 World Series run.
There was nothing the league could do about the fans Tuesday in the teams’ first game since the 2019 ALCS, which Jose Altuve won with a walk-off shot off Aroldis Chapman in Game 6.
“It felt like a playoff atmosphere,’’ Aaron Boone said. “It was amazing the 10,000 fans in there, the energy they created, we haven’t seen that since 2019. It was a fun game to be a part of.”
It started as soon as the gates opened about two hours before the game, as fans — deprived of a chance to vent their anger due to the pandemic last season — made up for lost time.
Domingo German waved to the crowd as he walked to the bullpen to warm up to encourage the booing and Boone said the noise before the game “got your attention.”
Much of it was aimed at Altuve, who was booed relentlessly, sometimes when he wasn’t even on the field.
“I don’t know if I’ve seen that,’’ Boone said. “It was definitely an energetic crowd. They expressed themselves.”
While some fans had various props — like inflatable garbage cans — confiscated, nothing was thrown on the field.
The lead-up to the series led to many questions of both the Yankees and Astros about what was justified and what wasn’t, particularly since most of the guilty parties aren’t in Houston anymore.
“They were into every pitch and definitely expressing some bottled up emotions,’’ Stanton said.
Asked if he’d heard a constant barrage like Tuesday’s, Stanton said, “Oh, no. That was intense. I wouldn’t want to be on the other side of that. They brought something heavy.”
So did the Yankees. After Bregman homered off German in the first, the Yankees responded with three runs in the bottom of the inning against Zack Greinke — including a two-run shot by Stanton.
The Astros tied the game with two runs off German in the fourth, but the Yankees put the game away two innings later — with the bullpen adding four innings of scoreless relief.
“This series has been circled by a lot of people for a while now,’’ LeMahieu said. “It was a wild atmosphere, but we’ve got to take care of business and get wins.”






