It Doesn't Take a Conspiracy Theory to Understand How the Astros Are Beating the Yankees

After a season of absurd power numbers and the ball flying out of the park at a record rate, Major League Baseball has returned to a happier medium during the playoffs. The change has plenty of people wondering -- and not so quietly -- if there's a difference in composition in regards to the October baseball.

And you know what? Maybe. Maybe there's something shady going on. But if it is, one would figure both teams would the same for both teams. You know how much everyone loves both-sides coverage. Count on us to provide it.

That, though, is not really the sense a person gets from this piece in the New York Daily News titled "‘Dejuiced’ or not, Yankees baffled by these playoff baseballs in Game 3."

The Yankees are befuddled that their long fly balls didn't make it over the fence. Didi Gregorius almost had a three-run homer but didn't. DJ LeMahieu had two loud outs. Brett Gardner took an atrocious route on a ball hit by Houston's Martin Maldonado.

No one can explain it. It's odd.

Even stranger is the fact that the Astros were able to hit two balls over the fence. Both Jose Altuve and Josh Reddick blasted baseballs for round-trippers. And so did Gleyber Torres if we're keeping track of such things. So there were dingers, not just enough dingers.

Look, a charitable read of the article is that it's addressing something that's happening in the playoffs through the lens of a specific game. A less charitable read is that it's lame pretext of excuse-making. One doesn't have to work too hard to get the sense from the piece that there could be something fishy going on and the Yankees are on the short end of the stick.

What really happened in Game 3, of course, is that New York ran into the unbeatable Gerrit Cole and did not capitalize when it placed runners on base. Houston played both long and small ball and now leads the series 2-1.