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A-Rod: Keuchel is 'Greg Maddux from the left side'

Ralph Freso / Getty Images Sport / Getty

Shortly after being eliminated from the 2015 playoffs, Alex Rodriguez offered an explanation for his club's three-hit performance in Tuesday's American League wild-card game.

It starts with Dallas and ends with Maddux.

''He was as good as it gets,'' Rodriguez said of Houston Astros left-hander Dallas Keuchel, who shut out the New York Yankees across six innings to help advance the Houston Astros to the ALDS. "He was Greg Maddux from the left side."

Pitching on three days' rest for the first time in his career, the AL Cy Young candidate dominated A-Rod and the Yankees. He struck out seven, walked one, and allowed three hits in the pivotal game, while throwing 54 of his 87 pitches for strikes.

(Courtesy: MLB.com)

Yankees fans were loud and heckled Keuchel in warmups, but the Astros' 20-game winner didn't seem fazed pitching in the Bronx. He fanned Brett Gardner three times and A-Rod once, and finishes his season against New York with 28 strikeouts over 22 scoreless innings.

''To come to Yankee Stadium and play that well was truly remarkable,'' said Keuchel after the 3-0 win. ''I felt like I had never been on the mound before with the adrenaline I had."

Rodriguez, who also struck out in the ninth, squandered the Yankees' only rally in the sixth when he offered at an 87-mph cutter and managed a weak inning-ending fly out to center with runners on first and second.

"Getting that out was the most important out certainly up to that point," manager A.J. Hinch told reporters. "Tough matchup against a good hitter, who he's had success against."

Related: Yankees limp out of playoffs quietly in wild-card game

Bolstered by a pair of early solo shots from Colby Rasmus and Carlos Gomez, in addition to Jose Altuve's RBI single in the seventh, Keuchel retired 10 straight Yankees at one point and allowed just two baserunners to reach scoring position all night.

"That really settled me down, and that's who we are," Keuchel said of Gomez's fourth-inning homer off Masahiro Tanaka. "We hit a lot of home runs, pitch well and play defense."

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