Will sticking to the plan work for Yankees?

The Astros, who went out and got Zack Greinke at the Trade Deadline, were supposed to have the edge with starting pitching over the Yankees, who didn’t do anything about pitching at the Deadline. Then Masahiro Tanaka was brilliant in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series. Greinke got lit up by the Yankees the way the Rays lit him up in Game 3 of the Astros-Rays Division Series.

Game	Date	Result	Highlights
Gm 1	Oct. 12	NYY 7, HOU 0	Watch
Gm 2	Oct. 13	HOU 3, NYY 2 (11)	Watch
Gm 3	Oct. 15	HOU 4, NYY 1	Watch
Gm 4	Oct. 17	HOU 8, NYY 3	Watch
Gm 5	Oct. 18	NYY 4, HOU 1	Watch
Gm 6	Oct. 19	HOU 6, NYY 4	Watch

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• Postseason schedule and bracket

Then the Yankees gave the ball to James Paxton, who’d been their best starter the second half of the season, in Game 2. Only Aaron Boone pulled Paxton in the third inning. Paxton had only given up one run to that point, but there were two runners on and Alex Bregman was coming to the plate. Paxton was gone.

By the time Game 2 was over, Boone would have done what the Yankees have done since the Deadline: Made a bet that the best bullpen on the planet could carry the Yankees to what would have been their biggest victory of the season so far, and a 2-0 series lead.

And his relievers nearly made that bet pay off. Boone used eight of them from the third to the 11th at Minute Maid Park. They only gave the Astros two runs from the third until the bottom of the 11th. By then, Boone was out of relievers and pitching J.A. Happ, who’d been one of his starters. Carlos Correa took Happ out of Minute Maid, and the Astros had won, 3-2, and the ALCS was even at 1-1 going back to New York.

Correa was as important to the Astros in Game 2, knocking in their first run and last, as Gleyber Torres had been for the Yankees with his bat in Game 1. And Correa might have saved everything when he threw out D.J. LeMahieu at the plate in the top of the sixth. But what was just as important on this amazing baseball night in Houston was that as good as the Yankee bullpen was until the end, the Astros relievers were even better once Justin Verlander was out of the game in the seventh. Because the five guys AJ Hinch used out of his bullpen gave the Yankees nothing.

Now it’s a best-of-five series. Because the Yankees got a game in Houston, the home-field advantage has shifted to them now, with the next three games at Yankee Stadium, where the Yankees won Games 3, 4, 5 in the ALCS of 2017. Tanaka changed the narrative a little by coming up as big as he did in Game 1. Then the Astros relievers did the same, by just enough, in Game 2.

• Yanks head home with series even: 'Time to roll'

If this thing goes the distance, there are five games left and Verlander and Gerrit Cole will pitch three of them for the Astros. And the Yankees will answer the question, once and for all, if they do have enough starting pitching, ahead of that bullpen, to get them back to the World Series. They got a bullpen game on Sunday night. They pitched all their top guys, Chad Green and Adam Ottavino and Tommy Kahnle and Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman. They gave the Astros two runs across 7 2/3 innings. Really good. Just not good enough. Series even.

When Boone was asked afterward about having Happ in there in the 11th, this is what he said:

"You're playing it to win the game. You're not playing it to -- what if we go 13, you know? You're playing it to what gives us the best chance to win here. And the bottom line is we end up giving up a third run in the 11th inning."

You remember how hot the subject of Yankee starting pitching was in New York, and with their fans, when Brian Cashman decided not to overpay for another starter at the Deadline, even though all of the Yankee starters were a hot mess at the time. Cashman believed in the guys he had. And believed mightily in his bullpen and what his team would look like in October if it got most of its injured players back. This is what he said at the time:

“The best play was we did nothing. And we did nothing for good reason, because we felt that everything that was in front of me really was not obtainable based on the associated costs. ... And that’s with understanding as a buyer you have to step up and overpay. But these were prices that I felt were making things way out of reach and way out of line.”

The Yankees now go with Luis Severino, last year’s ace, in Game 3. The Astros go with Cole, who has been spectacular for months, and was again last Thursday night, when the Astros need him to not just be brilliant and save their season in Game 5 against the Rays. They are set up to have him in Game 7 in Houston and Verlander in Game 6 before him if the Astros and Yankees do go the distance again. And, if there is weather in New York this week (and there might be), maybe Verlander can pitch sooner than that.

So far in this series each team has gotten a big October game from its ace, Tanaka and then Verlander. But the Astros, who beat the Yankees because of their starters two years ago, have two aces this season. The Yankees? They decided they had enough starting pitching in July, because of their bullpen. Now they get the chance to prove it in October. They got the bullpen game they wanted Sunday night. They just did everything except win it.