When Yankees manager Aaron Boone met with the media in Houston on Friday on the eve of the ALCS, the first order of business was announcing the the Yankees' pitching rotation.

According to Boone, the Yankees will go with Masahiro Tanaka in Game 1, James Paxton in Game 2, and Luis Severino in Game 3, and then go from there.

"Again, I felt like it was a good decision, a tough one to be made, similar to the Division Series where I was going back and forth a lot," said Boone. "Just felt like Masa here in Game 1, that's the way I wanted to go in the end."

"The team told me that I was pitching Game 1 before we left New York," Tanaka said. "As far as facing the Houston lineup, obviously it's going to be a challenge. You try not to do anything different going into the game. You prepare for it, you make your plan, and basically you go out there and execute."

With Astros manager AJ Hinch announcing his rotation earlier in the day, the first three pitching matchups are set:

Game 1: Masahiro Tanaka vs. Zack Greinke

Game 2: James Paxton vs. Justin Verlander

Game 3: Luis Severino vs. Gerrit Cole

Boone was also asked if the Yankees had finalized their ALCS roster, to which Boone said the team is still going through it. Among the biggest questions for the Yankees is whether or not Aaron Hicks and CC Sabathia, who have been dealing with injuries, will be on the roster.

"We have not finalized yet. Still working through it, actually," Boone said. "Obviously, watching last night's game, everyone was at home, so we did have a big roster meeting and talk through a lot of things yesterday for quite a while. Then obviously with the game last night and flying this morning, we'll kind of get together again and hope to nail it down here pretty soon but we have not made the final call."

Popular in the Community