HOUSTON – Stuck in a slump dating back to Opening Day, Austin Wells came through in the clutch on Saturday.
With the Yankees and Astros tied at two in the seventh inning, the Bombers’ backstop pulled a solo home run to right off Houston reliever Kai-Wei Teng. For Wells, it was just his second home run of the season and only his third RBI.
He wasn’t done there, though, as Wells added an RBI single in the ninth inning of what became an 8-3, series-securing victory for the Yankees.
While the Yankees padded their lead with two bases-loaded walks in the seventh, a Ben Rice sac fly in the eighth, and a Ryan McMahon single in the ninth, it was Wells who provided the go-ahead run in the club’s eighth straight win.
It’s been a rough first month for the catcher, as he entered Saturday’s game with a .164 average and a .536 OPS. With the third-year pro also coming off a subpar 2025 campaign, Wells’ offensive capabilities have been the subject of questioning in recent weeks and months.
But Aaron Boone has maintained since the offseason that the Yankees expect more out of his bat. And although he held Wells out of Friday’s series-opener, the manager insisted that the left-handed hitter was on the right track.
“I feel like, overall, in the last week, 10 days, his at-bats have been pretty good,” Boone said Friday despite a lack of results.
Wells, who finished Saturday’s game 2 for 3 with two walks, wasn’t the only Yankee to homer in the win, as Trent Grisham and José Caballero hit solo shots into Daikin Park’s Crawford Boxes in the third and fifth frames, respectively. Both came off Houston starter Mike Burrows.
For Caballero, it was his second home run in as many games, though he also caught some flak on Saturday for trying and failing to steal third base with a lefty at-bat on two separate occasions.
On the mound, Ryan Weathers was solid in his return from paternity leave; the lefty and his wife welcomed their first child this week before he allowed two earned runs over 5 1/3 innings. Weathers also walked none, struck out four and permitted six hits over 86 pitches.
Carlos Correa proved to be the toughest matchup of the day for Weathers, as the Astros’ shortstop crushed a bases-empty blast off the southpaw in the sixth inning to tie the game at two. Correa also smoked a leadoff double in the first before scoring on a single from Isaac Paredes.
The Astros scored another run in the ninth when Christian Walker homered off Tim Hill, but Houston was in too deep of a hole at that point.