Meyers (2 HRs) carries Astros with career-high 6 RBIs 

NEW YORK -- The final batted ball of the game was struck by Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton at 106.1 mph and brought the Bronx crowd to its feet with the anticipation of a possible walk-off homer. Astros center fielder Jake Meyers held up his left hand to block the sun and calmly caught it on the warning track -- 392 feet from home plate -- for the final out.

“When that ball went up off the bat of Stanton with the way this ball is flying here, Jake had a beat on it,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “I said, ‘Please come out of the sun.’”

Meyers was Johnny-on-the-spot for the Astros, who overcame a season-high 12 walks and a hit batter with the bases loaded to outlast the Yankees, 9-7, on Sunday and split the four-game series. In addition to a few battles with the high sky above Yankee Stadium that made tracking fly balls difficult, Meyers slugged a pair of three-run homers and drove in a career-high six runs.

“It was a really fun game to be a part of, an absolute battle,” he said. “It was fun on both ends, and I’m glad we won.”

The Astros kept pace with the Rangers, who beat the Marlins to maintain a 2 1/2-game lead atop the American League West. Houston will be honored at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Monday for winning the 2022 World Series, before opening up a big three-game series against AL-leading Baltimore on Tuesday.

“Especially because Texas won, [this was] an all-important, getaway-day victory, and now we can go to the White House feeling good,” Baker said.

Baker certainly didn’t feel good during many points of Sunday’s game, in which five Astros pitchers combined for a dozen walks, including two with the bases loaded in the fourth inning by Phil Maton. The Yankees couldn’t take full advantage of the free baserunners, though, going 3-for-12 with runners in scoring position and stranding 15 on base, including two in the ninth.

“We helped them, we helped us,” Baker said. “... This is one of those days where the plate is moving around on you. The plate wouldn’t be still. The game wore me out, really.”

Meyers clubbed a go-ahead three-run homer in the second inning off starter Carlos Rodón and broke a tie with another three-run homer in the sixth, that time off lefty reliever Wandy Peralta.

“Trying to put a good swing on pitches over the middle, and I think the situations kind of dictated me trying to get the ball in the air and that kind of helped me out,” Meyers said.

Meyers accounted for two of the Astros’ four homers -- Yordan Alvarez hit a two-run homer in the third inning that put the Astros ahead, 5-1, and Martín Maldonado followed Meyers with a solo shot in the sixth, pushing the lead to 9-5. That was Houston’s ninth set of back-to-back homers this year.

Astros starter José Urquidy, activated from the 60-day injured list, pitched for the first time since April 30 and gave up five runs, three walks and three hits in 3 1/3 innings. The Yankees took advantage of four walks and a hit batter in the fourth to push four runs across and tie the game, but Meyers answered that with his first-pitch homer off Peralta in the sixth.

“Hey man, that was good,” Baker said of Meyers.

Houston rookie J.P. France, making his first relief appearance of the season, threw 3 1/3 innings and gave up one unearned run to claim the win. He came into the game with the bases loaded in that fourth and got Gleyber Torres to fly out and restore order.

“I was told, especially the first time out of the ‘pen: ‘Hey, we’re going to have a clean inning, we’re going to make sure it’s as close to your starting routine as you can,’” France said. “Obviously, that didn’t pan out. …

“That was definitely a huge situation. I was so locked in throwing in the bullpen I wasn’t aware it was a tied game. When I got out of it, I was like, ‘Wow.’ It was definitely different, but at the end of the day, you still have to go out there and put some zeroes up.”