Torres, Tanaka carry Yankees to big Game 1 win over Astros

HOUSTON — Cleaner than the Board of Health.

That is the only way to describe the performance the Yankees delivered Saturday night, when they overwhelmed the Astros, 7-0, in Game 1 of the ALCS in front of a sold-o🐭ut Minute Maid crowd of 43,311.

From the muscle department, Gleyber Torres went 3-for-5 with aꦑ homer and five RBIs, Giancarlo Stant🎀on hit a laser over the center-field wall and Gio Urshela lofted a homer into the right-field seats.

Masahiro Tanaka added to his reputation as an Octoberౠ stud with six shutout innings ⛎in which he faced the minimum 18 batters.

DJ LeMahieu and Aaron Judge provided sparkling defense that hel✅ped the winn♔ers pull off three double plays. LeMahieu dug three balls out of the dirt and Judge doubled Alex Bregman off first with a bullet throw from right center in the fifth.

When asked if this was the Yank🉐ees’ best game of the season, Brett Gardner said, “With the atmosphere and coming in here, I would say yeah.”

The only blemish was Didi Gregorius an♕d Torres each stopping on a Jose Altuve grounder up the middle that put runners at the corners with one out in the seventh but was erased when Adam Ottavino fed Bregman a 5-4-3 double-play pill.

The victory gave the Yankees a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven affair that continues Sunday with Game 2. The Yankees will start James Paxton and the Astros will counter with Cy Young candidate Ju🐟stin Verlander.

It also was the Yankees’ fourth postseason win in four games and took away the Astros’ home-field advantage.

“ꦜIt all starts with♑ starting pitching. You can’t bullpen your way to a ring,’’ said Zack Britton, who pitched a scoreless eighth.

Tanaka allowed one hit — a one-out single to Kyle Tucker — that was negated by Robinson Chirinos banging into a 5-4-3 double play to end the third. In six innings, Tanaka walked one a🌼nd struck out four.

Pitching in a ballpark that hadn’t treated him well (0-2 with a 5.14 ERA in five starts including tꦜhe postseason), Tanak🧸a dominated with pinpoint control that allowed him to need only 68 pitches to get 18 outs.

In seven career postseason starts, Tanaka is 5-2 with a 1.32 ERA, and none of them were better t𓃲han Saturday night’s effort.

Elevated from sixth to third in the batting order after going 3-for-4 with a homer in Game 3 of the ALDs in which Torres batted .417 (5-for-12) with four RBIs, the 22-year-old second baseman and two-time All-Star doubled the Yankees’ first run home in the fourth inning, made it 2-0 with a one-out 🍌homer to left off Zack Greinke in the sixth and dumped a two-run single into center against Ryan Pressly in the seventh that stretched the Yankees’ lea🧜d to 5-0.

Torres finished the game 3-for-5 with five RBIs thanks to driving DJ LeMahieu in from third with a ninth-inꦇning ground out for the game’s final run.

“The key is just I [got a] really good plan to go to home plate,’’ said Torres, whose five RBIs are the most i𓂃n ALCS history for a player 22 or younger and marked just the third time that had happened in postseason history.

Stanton ꦏsaid Torres could be just getting started.

“He is ready to do💃 damage,’’ Stanton said. “He took a lot of good pitcher’s pitches tonight and waited for his.’’

On his way out of the clubhouse, G🍎ardner said he wo♏uld welcome a repeat in Game 2.

“I would like to do it again [Sunday],’’ said Gar🔯dner of d🐼uplicating an almost perfect game top to bottom.