Indians vs. Yankees Game 4: Live score updates and highlights from 2017 ALDS

The Yankees survived Game 3 to force a Game 4, while the Indians hope to join the Astros in the ALCS.

The Astros put away the Red Sox in Game 4 and earned a spot in the ALCS: are the Indians right behind them? They have the opportunity to join Houston in the American League Championship Series, but they’ll have to get past Luis Severino and the Yankees to do so. Meanwhile, the Yankees were able to force Game 4 thanks to a Greg Bird homer and a stellar performance from Masahiro Tanaka, and they’ll need similar excellence on Monday in order to force a decisive Game 5.

We’ll be back to live blog at 7 p.m. ET, when Severino takes the mound to oppose short-rest Trevor Bauer and the Indians.

As usual, if you want to read from the beginning, scroll down to the “first inning” header and work your way back up. Or just start with us at 7 and refresh constantly and you’ll never be lost.

1st inning

Luis Severino tied for the shortest postseason start in Yankees’ history in the AL Wild Card Game by surviving long enough to record one out against the Twins before he was lifted. He was clearly pumped up, and the extra adrenaline had him missing his spots, and then Minnesota was up and threatening further in a hurry.

Things should be different on Monday: it’s not Severino’s first postseason start, and he was the team’s ace during the regular season. Bad games can happen even to the best pitchers — see Sale, Chris and Kluber, Corey, just for some recent examples.

Oh, look, it’s raining in New York, too, because we didn’t get enough of that during the earlier ALDS game in Boston. Francisco Lindor kicks things off for the Indians in a stadium that’s certainly not full with the weather, but also certainly not quiet.

Lindor flied out after an eight-pitch at-bat, bringing up Jason Kipnis. Severino’s locating seems a lot better tonight than it did during the Wild Card Game. He’s definitely still pumped up, though, because he just threw a 92 mile per hour changeup. Kipnis goes down via the K, bringing up Jose Ramirez, who is not doing a great job of convincing new potential fans that he deserves to be in any MVP conversation.

That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be in said conversation, by the way: I’m not on board with Bob Costas’ weird “include postseason play in MVP voting!” idea. It’s bad, folks. Just like Jose Ramirez’s ALDS so far, which most recently added a fly out to end the first.

Here comes Trevor Bauer, who was something of a gamble to start Game 1 over staff ace Kluber, but he acquitted himself well en route to an Indians’ shutout victory. Now Bauer gets Game 4 on short rest, and even though he thinks The Phantom Menace is the best Star Wars movie, he has a shot at making Cleveland look smart again. Brett Gardner helps my point in the short-term by striking out for the first out.

Aaron Judge would love a huge hit to break out of his series-long slump — he’s drawn some walks, but is yet to pick up a hit. Judge has picked up a whole bunch of full counts, at least, so he’s making pitchers work. It’s not nothing! It just looks like it when you see his ALDS line. P.S. Judge just struck out on a pitch at his eyes, eight feet in the air.