Houston Astros relief pitcher Luke Gregerson (No 44) celebrates with teammates after defeating the New York Yankees in the American League Wild Card playoff game at Yankee Stadium. PICTURE: US TODAY Sports

Reuters/New York

The Houston Astros blasted into the next round of the Major League Baseball postseason with a 3-0 shutout of the New York Yankees in their Wild Card playoff game on Tuesday.
Solo home runs by Colby Rasmus and Carlos Gomez backed the superlative pitching of Houston starting pitcher Dallas Keuchel, who blanked the Yanks on three hits over six innings with seven strikeouts.
Keuchel, 20-8 this season and pitching on three days’ rest for the first time, silenced the New York crowd of 50,000 by running his scoreless streak against the pinstripes to 22 innings in 2015.
“I didn’t think we would play that well,” Keuchel said in a televised post-game interview.
“I thought we’d play a bit better than average but I didn’t think we’d come to Yankee Stadium and play that well.”
Relievers Tony Sipp, Will Harris and Luke Gregerson pitched one scoreless inning each to combine with Keuchel on the three-hit shutout.
Yankees starter Masahiro Tanaka took the loss, giving up first-pitch home runs by Rasmus in the second inning and by Gomez in the fourth, in his five innings of work.
Houston tacked on the last run in the seventh on an RBI-single by Jose Altuve off reliever Dellin Betances in the seventh that drove in Jonathan Villar after he had stolen second base.
The victory lifted the Astros, appearing in the playoffs for the first time since 2005, into a best-of-five American League Division Series against the Kansas City Royals, starting today.
“You saw a lot of what’s right about Astros baseball,” said Houston manager A.J. Hinch. “We homered, we stole a few bases that came up key.
“We got gutsy pitching out of Keuchel and our bullpen, and we had some big plays on defense. I think that’s what we do when we’re at our best.”
Yankees manager Joe Girardi was disappointed but proud of his team, which was not regarded as a contender before the season.
“It’s really disappointing. It’s hard,” Girardi said. “Seasons end abruptly and it’s very difficult. This is a club that fought all year long, and there’s a lot of character in that room, and this hurts. We just didn’t get it done.
“We just haven’t been able to solve Keuchel this year.”
The other AL Division Series will see the Toronto Blue Jays, back in the postseason for the first time in 22 years, at home to the Texas Rangers.

Dodgers look to Kershaw in playoff opener
The Los Angeles Dodgers are counting on Clayton Kershaw to shake off past playoff disappointments when they give the left-handed hurler the ball tomorrow for their post-season opener against the New York Mets.
Dodgers manager Don Mattingly announced Kershaw will pitch game one of the best-of-five National League Division Series against the Mets, who will send right-hander Jacob deGrom to the mound at Dodger Stadium.
Kershaw, the reigning National League Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Award winner, led the league this season with 301 strikeouts.
He got the game-one nod over right-hander Zack Greinke, who led the NL with a 1.66 earned run average.
Kershaw, Greinke and Chicago Cubs right-hander Jake Arrieta are the top candidates for this year’s NL Cy Young Award as the league’s outstanding pitcher. But Kershaw brings a chequered post-season history to Friday’s contest.
He boasted the best earned run average in the major leagues for four straight seasons until team-mate Greinke bested him this season.
But in 11 post-season games he has an earned run average of 5.12. Each of the past two years, he lost twice to the St. Louis Cardinals in the post-season—in the NL Championship Series in 2013 and in the Division Series last year.
In those four games, he allowed a total of 18 earned runs in 22 2/3 innings and became the first Dodgers pitcher to lose four straight playoff starts. But Mattingly said those crushing defeats were irrelevant now.
“I look at this year in the present tense,” Mattingly said, adding that he wasn’t qualified to say whether Kershaw had something to prove in the playoffs. “I don’t need to defend him,” Mattingly said. “This year is this year. We’ll see what happens.”
Greinke will start game two on Saturday opposite Mets right-hander Noah Syndergaard.
When the series moves to New York for game three on Monday, Dodgers left-hander Brett Anderson will face off with Mets right-hander Matt Harvey.