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AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: YANKEES VS ASTROS


October 18, 2017


Chase Headley


New York, New York- postgame 5

New York - 5, Houston - 0

Q. DH's were not producing until a couple of days ago. You really started to get it going. What have you done to be successful lately?
CHASE HEADLEY: You know, I think you just have to keep in mind that sometimes in 15 at-bats things aren't going to go your way. And the last four or five at-bats before I started getting some hits I had some better at-bats. Just tried to stick with the plan and trust results were going to come.

Q. Obviously in the past you've had a lot of difficulty with Keuchel as a team. Why were you able to break through tonight against him?
CHASE HEADLEY: A couple things. One, I think whenever you face a pitcher twice in a week it makes it a little easier for the hitters. You understand what his stuff is doing. Obviously he had a lot of success against us the first day, so we thought he was probably going to attack us close to the same way.

The other things is I thought we had good team at-bats. Even our outs, we made him work for every out he got. We took advantage of the few mistakes that he made.

Against a guy like that, the only way you're going to break through is to grind them out, grind them out, grind them out, and finally we were able to break through.

Q. What were you hearing from some of your teammates when they were talking about what the crowd has been like the last few days?
CHASE HEADLEY: It's been unbelievable. I haven't seen anything like it in Major League Baseball since I've been here. Reminds me of college football games. They're going crazy the entire game. It's a huge advantage for us. And makes the environment tremendous to play.

Q. You've been here for this whole run Keuchel has had against you. Does it feel bigger beating him finally, knowing how good he's been against you, playoffs, regular season, every time he's faced you?
CHASE HEADLEY: Any time you break through against a pitcher or a team that's really had your number, you can take a lot of confidence away from that. Obviously we know we've got another really good one coming in a couple of days.

But it was important. We needed to win here and we were able to do that. And obviously to beat him you really do something if you're able to beat a pitcher like that.

Q. You beat Kluber twice, beat him. What is it about your lineup that seems to not shy away from some of the really big arms?
CHASE HEADLEY: I think guys have a lot of confidence that eventually we're going to break through. But the other side of it is a lot of the times we really haven't -- it's not like we're destroying our pitchers. Our starting pitching has been phenomenal. When they're keeping you in the game or keeping them with a zero on the board, it kind of takes the pressure off the team to go out and score three or four runs. And if you grind a run or two across then you feel pretty good about it.

Q. Given his history against you, especially in the two postseason starts, is there a big sense of relief?
CHASE HEADLEY: No question. He's as tough as anybody on us. And to really break through, in the second inning, I think it was, to get a run, I thought that lifted everybody's spirits and gave us some confidence that we could get to him going forward. We knew we weren't going to bust it open and score seven off of him, but we could scratch a couple runs out, but that was going to be good enough with the way Tanaka was throwing.

Q. Tanaka, he showed a lot of emotion on the mound. Have you seen that from him before?
CHASE HEADLEY: Probably a little more emotion than you usually see. We've seen a little bit of emotion from him in big spots. But a little bit more all the way throughout tonight. And that's a wonderful thing when you have a pitcher that steps his game up in the biggest moments. That's huge.

Our starting pitching has been phenomenal and obviously he's been -- in the postseason has been basically unhittable.

Q. How would you describe the run this team has been on so far down the postseason, down 0-2 against Cleveland, and down 0-2 against Houston and one game --
CHASE HEADLEY: I've been incredibly impressed with the poise we've shown as a club. We struggled individually, struggled as a team, we made mistakes that maybe even cost us a game, but there was never any panic. I always trusted that we could win that next game. And that's been the whole philosophy, don't worry about what's coming, just worry about that one game, and it's worked well for us.

But I think it says a lot about the poise and the relaxed environment that we've been able to keep even in very difficult games.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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