HOUSTON — The Yankees have played 14 teams and have a winning record against all but one of them.
It shouldn’t be hard to come up with the exception, as the Yankees lost to the Astros, 2-1, on Thursday — and have lost three of the team’s five meetings so far this year.
This one snapped the Yankees’ four-game winning streak, as they opened a 10-game, four-city trip in front of a sellout crowd of 40,674 at Minute Maid Park in a makeup game that originally was scheduled for the first week of the regular season, but pushed back because of the MLB lockout.
The loss dropped the Yankees’ MLB-best record to 56-21, as Luis Severino, facing a lineup without Yordan Alvarez and Jeremy Pena — injured when they collided into each other trying to make a play on Wednesday, was out-dueled by Luis Garcia.
Severino allowed just a pair of runs in six innings — thanks to a two-run double by Alex Bregman in the third — but the Yankees only came up with an Anthony Rizzo homer in the sixth.
The Yankees managed just a walk against Garcia until the third, when Joey Gallo walked and DJ LeMahieu singled with one out.
But Aaron Judge flied to center and Rizzo struck out to end their first threat of the night.
The Astros — who have won five of six — loaded the bases in the bottom of the inning, as Severino allowed a leadoff double to Jake Meyers and two-out walks to Aledymas Diaz and Kyle Tucker.
After walking Tucker in a nine-pitch at-bat, Severino gave up a two-run double off the left-field wall to Bregman.
The inning ended in wild fashion, as Severino was having problems with PitchCom and took the device out of his hat, which led Tucker to break for home, but Severino recovered in time to get the ball to Jose Trevino for the final out and keep it a two-run game.
Severino then retired the final nine batters he faced before leaving after six innings.
The Yankees finally got to Garcia in the sixth.
After the right-hander whiffed Judge to start the inning, Rizzo fell behind, 0-2, before ripping a homer to right to cut the deficit to 2-1.
It snapped a 1-for-34 skid for Rizzo and ended Garcia’s night.
Giancarlo Stanton singled off Ryne Stanek and Gleyber Torres drew a two-out walk, but Trevino grounded out and the Yankees dropped to 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position.
Hector Neris and Rafael Montero pitched scoreless innings out of the Houston bullpen before Ryan Pressly, who had a blown save against the Yankees last week, got through the ninth to preserve the win.
Before the game, Aaron Boone acknowledged the makeup game —sandwiched between Wednesday’s win in The Bronx over the A’s and Friday’s series opener against the Guardians in Cleveland, was “challenging” — especially in the midst of a stretch of 20 days without an off day.
“Every team in the league has to go through difficult scenarios,’’ Boone said.
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