Overreaction to Ken Giles’ Face Punch Costs the Astros a Crucial Edge Against the Yankees: The Evil Empire Doesn’t Fear Houston Anymore

The blaring music from the last two nights that threatened to drown out any conversation is gone. Now, the New York Yankees just look completely at home in the visitors clubhouse at Minute Maid Park. It’s like Aaron Judge and company’s personal shop of horrors has suddenly transformed into their own Club Med.

Even if that giant 2004 All-Star Game sticker is still stuck on the wall — and that weird pattern green carpet hasn’t gotten any prettier.

This is what happens when you lose your edge — and the Houston Astros decidedly lost the mind meld they held over baseball’s Evil Empire. The Yankees came into Houston this week having lost every game at the Astros’ home in an American League Championship Series that went the full seven games. They lost their season, and their World Series dreams, here. They didn’t know if they could win a big game here.

They leave having won three straight at Minute Maid Park, roaring back to take this early showdown series in emphatic fashion. This is the Yankees’ only trip to Houston during the regular season. And there’s little doubt they have confidence things are different now.

“Whatever happened in 2017, that’s 2017,” Aroldis Chapman, the Yankees fireballing closer, says. “What happens this year is what happens this year.”

Wait till this year?

No one in New York ever seems to give the Astros any respect for winning it all last October. And they’re certainly not going to start now. It’s only May 4, but that doesn’t mean the Astros didn’t lose a little something this week. They know it too.

“As big as this series could have been for us, it hurts a little more,” Astros outfielder Josh Reddick says. “Especially because we had so much faith we could do well against these guys.”

The Astros have lost a bit of their edge over the Yankees. This does not mean they cannot get it back. But it does make the road to a repeat a little tougher.

When Chapman blows three straight 100-mph–plus fastballs past Jose Altuve, the king of crushing fastballs, in the bottom of the ninth to kill what looks like it could be another bit of Minute Maid magic and seal a 6-5 Yankees win, his teammates see a new future.

Wait till this year.

“He always has an extra gear when he’s rearing back,” Brett Gardner, one of the few old vet Yankees on this young New York team, says of Chapman. “He’s as pumped up as anybody in a big game. Even though he may not always show it.”

In other words, Aroldis Chapman doesn’t punch himself in the face. Ah yes, The Punch. It’s crazy to think that Ken Giles slugging himself in the noggin — and the overreaction to that swing (yes, the overreaction) — completely changed this series. But it did.

Ken Giles Punches Himself Into Purgatory

If Giles simply surrenders that three-run home run to Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez on Tuesday night and does not punch himself and smash through the dugout afterwards, maybe A.J. Hinch uses him to close Thursday afternoon’s game instead of Will Harris and he gets it done like he did against these Yankees in the series opener.

Then, suddenly the story of the series is the Astros coming back from 3-0 and 28 straight scoreless innings in the finale to stun and befuddle the pinstriped pretenders again.

Hinch does not say if he was punishing Giles or not for a tirade he called “a tough look” in the days after. He does not say if the punch factors into his decision to go away from Giles. He does not say much of anything on the bullpen mess.

“I picked Harris,” Hinch simply says sharply when asked why Giles doesn’t get the ninth.

“I thought Harris could get those guys out. He had good matchups,” Hinch says later. And that’s as elaborate as the Astros manager gets.

Still, it’s hard to imagine the punch not being a factor. Which is crazy in its own way. Because Ken Giles did what we ask all our professional athletes to do — show how much they care. Ken Giles cares. He cares so much that when he doesn’t come through and validate Justin Verlander’s 14-strikeout gem, he strikes himself coming off the mound.

Yes, I get how violently messed up it looks on TV. Yes, you can ague that it makes the Yankees think they can get in Giles’ head. And as the dad of a baseball-obsessed 12-year-old, I understand what a bad self harm message it could send to kids.

But if you’ve ever played sports and were serious about it, you’ve certainly screamed at yourself or thrown a fit you later regret in the heat of messing something up. And you didn’t have a crowd of 32,000 people screaming all around you.

Giles needs to be a better pro. He essentially took himself out of this series just like Draymond Green took himself out of the 2016 NBA Finals.

But what Giles did was very human. The fascination with it is understandable — the imagery of Giles clocking himself in the face is powerful. But the public furor over it is not. And it may have cost the Astros a split.

Hinch essentially won a World Series without a closer, turning his fourth and fifth starters into relievers. But the Astros manager is going to need his closer during this regular season. Now, he must build Ken Giles up again.

Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow doesn’t do panic. The on-again-off-again offensive woes aren’t going to prompt him to bring up Kyle Tucker before it is service time smart for the Astros to make the move as much as this lineup can clearly use the 21-year-old who is arguably the third best bat in the organization behind only Altuve and Carlos Correa right now.

This team is too good to go into a prolonged slump even before Tucker gets here. Altuve is not likely to go 2-for-17 like he did in these four games against Yankees in another series all season. Correa is still raking against the Yankees. He’s also making the type of plays on defense that make mouths drop. His far-ranging sprint into the outfield, pivot almost against his body and bullet throw to gun out Ronald Torreyes on Thursday afternoon is the stuff of budding legend.

“I told him, ‘It’s one of the best plays I’ve ever seen made in person,’ ” Astros pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. says.

Still, the Yankees leave smiling, having discovered something at Minute Maid. Chapman holds the regained lead Thursday afternoon the way he couldn’t keep Altuve and the Astros at bay in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series here last October. Suddenly, it seems like a different Minute Maid. Suddenly, the Astros magic isn’t in the building.

“Of course, there’s a lot of adrenalin,” Chapman says.

Wait till this year?