For the first time since Game 2 of the 2012 ALCS, a Yankees designated hitter recorded a hit Monday night.
Chase Headley was the one to finally end the drought, singling through the Astros’ shift to drive in a run as part of a five-run fourth inning in the Yankees’ 8-1 win in Game 3 of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium.
Yankees designated hitters — a combination of Headley, Jacoby Ellsbury and Matt Holliday — had been a combined 0-for-28 in the postseason before Headley’s single. He finished the night 1-for-3 with a strikeout and is 1-for-18 in these playoffs, but his lone hit — also the first of his postseason career — proved timely.
“I was hoping I was going to get a hit at some point,” Headley said with a grin. “But that’s the game sometimes. I think recently I’ve had some better at-bats, hit some balls hard and just wasn’t getting the results. You try to take the positives from it and do the best you can. But obviously it needs to be better than it’s been.”
Raul Ibanez was the last Yankees DH to collect a hit in the playoffs, but since then they were a combined 0-for-41.
Headley came up with two outs and runners on the corners in the fourth inning and worked the count full before poking an 83-mph cutter just to the right of second base. Had the Astros positioned their infield normally, Jose Altuve may have been able to make a play on it to get out of the inning unscathed. Instead, the ball trickled to Altuve in shallow right field, but he had no shot to throw out Headley at first as Greg Bird came in to score to make it a 4-0 Yankees lead.
“I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to [the shift],” Headley said. “I’m sure they have their reasons for it. It’s crazy, but they have their statistics that say that’s the right place for them to play. But in that case, obviously it worked out in my favor.”
Headley’s frustrations had grown in his first at-bat when he thought he was hit by a pitch — a review said he was not — before making solid contact for a fly out to right field.
“My first at-bat I got hit by a pitch and hit a line drive and still didn’t make it to first base,” he said. “So it was going pretty bad. Nice to get that one out of the way and keep putting together some better at-bats.”
