Clarke Schmidt flirts with no-hitter as Yankees rout Orioles

On an afternoon in which the Yankees’ slumbering lumber finally fully awakened — big news by any measure — for the first seven innings on Saturday, it looked as if that development would be only a footnote to a historic event.

Clarke Schmidt held the Orioles hitless through seven innings before his 103 pitches in searing heat ended his outing. Former Yankee Gary Sanchez’s leadoff single in the eighth off JT Brubaker — one pitch after first-base umpire Jansen Visconti ruled that Sanchez had checked his swing on a potential strikeout, a questionable call — was the Orioles’ first and only hit.

Long before that, the Yankees’ bats that were conspicuously hushed for more than a week got loud and authoritative. They had 14 hits, including four solo home runs and a triple, and cruised to a 9-0 rout before a sellout crowd of 46,142 at the Stadium.

Trent Grisham hit his 15th home run of the season in the first inning, a drive that just cleared rightfielder Ramon Laureano’s leap at the wall. J.C. Escarra (No. 2) and Ben Rice (No. 13) reached the second deck in rightfield in the second and Anthony Volpe (No. 9) sliced a drive just inside the rightfield foul pole in the fifth.

The Yankees have scored 19 runs in the past three games after managing only seven in the previous seven games.

“That’s three in a row now and I would throw yesterday very much in that mix,” manager Aaron Boone said, referencing the club’s 10 hits in Friday night’s 5-3 loss. “But at the same time, that’s who they are [and] that’s what they’re capable of.

“[On Friday] we didn’t get the results with a ton of runs, but the heavy at-bats have returned. [Opposing starters] are just throwing a boatload of pitches in the first few innings because everyone’s making it tough on them. Whether the at-bat ends in a positive result or not, it’s like, ‘Man, let’s grind’ . . . and today’s even more of a breakthrough.”

The Yankees forced Zach Eflin to throw 90 pitches in his three innings. He allowed six runs, 10 hits and two walks.

Schmidt (4-3, 2.84) has been on nothing short of a pitching tear. He extended his scoreless-innings streak to 25 1⁄3 and retired 20 of the final 21 batters to face him, allowing a pair of first-inning walks and hitting a batter in the fourth.

Schmidt’s performance grew more and more impressive as it went on. He needed 27 pitches to get through the first inning because Jordan Westburg drew a seven-pitch walk (after falling behind 0-and-2) and Gunnar Henderson a nine-pitch pass (after falling behind 1-and-2). He needed only 38 pitches to get through the next three innings, though. and then made it look as if he might be able to take a no-hitter to the finish line.

He required only nine pitches to retire the side in order in the fifth and eight to do it in the sixth, leaving him at 82. The Orioles made the prospect of finishing the job virtually impossible in the seventh, though, when they went down in order but made Schmidt throw 21 pitches.

“I started looking up towards the sixth or seventh and, going into the seventh, I knew that I had no hits but I also knew that I had close to 100 pitches,” he said. “It was like I had an internal battle with myself where it’s kind of out of reach but I’m still going to try to go out there and put up no hits.”

Boone said that after the seventh, “He was done.”

He added, “Clarke, as great as he was today, physically all day it was a little bit of a challenge for him so I kind of knew, even after the fifth, it wasn’t going to be long [for him]. You’re going to power through pitch limits within reason. Today was not that day for Clarke.”

Volpe broke out of a major slump, first quietly and then with increasing volume, as he went 3-for-5. When he whiffed badly in the second inning, his skid was at 0-for-25. In the third inning, his swinging bunt down the third-base line went for an infield hit. He started a two-run fifth with his 347-foot homer to rightfield and added a bloop single to rightfield in the sixth.

Asked if there was a straight line between the infield single and the home run, Volpe replied, “I’d be lying to say it didn’t . . . I was really happy with my approach, and as much as you joke an infield single or blooper being the same as a line [drive], I was happy to put the barrel on the ball today.”

The two runs in the fifth made it 8-0 and included arguably the most exciting play of the game as Rice drove an RBI triple off the centerfield wall.

By then, Schmidt had more than enough run support. Boone said he’s come to consider him “one of the more underrated pitchers in the game,” and that suits the righty just fine.

“Every time I go out there, I have a chip on my shoulder, so the lack of attention or attention to not being one of the top guys is a motivating factor for me,” Schmidt said. “It’s something that I’m always thinking about. I find ways to motivate myself very easily. Being ‘underrated’ is another way to put it.”

By Roger Rubin

roger.rubin@newsday.com@rogrubin

Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.