HOUSTON — Only a handful of games over the course of a six-month season carry significant meaning as a stand-alone contest. Maybe it is the context of a pennant race, the unfolding of a remarkable moment or the weight of history.
One of those arrived on Monday for the Yankees, when they traveled here for the first time since an agonizing defeat in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series.
Nothing this week would erase that memory, or the sting of watching the Houston Astros go on to win their first World Series. But the Yankees, who arrived with a nine-game winning streak, at least hoped to show that they had put that painful memory behind them against a team that, like the Yankees, bolstered its roster with an eye on winning a championship this fall.