CC Sabathia leaves with sore right hip; Yankees lose in 14 innings

Fourteen innings is a long, long way to go just to suffer as much as the Yankees did on Friday night. And technically Saturday morning.

First there was the injury to CC Sabathia. And then Brandon Drury left. Oh, and Tyler Wade, too. Aroldis Chapman was visited by a trainer. Gary Sanchez limped off the field in the 14th. And Didi Gregorius nearly scored the winning run in the 11th but got called out on a play at the plate.

There was no fiery hail or locusts, but who knows what might’ve happened if Pedro Alvares hadn’t hit a grand slam at 12:29 a.m. Saturday?

After all that, the score — a 7-3 loss to the Orioles that lasted 5 hours, 20 minutes — almost seems like the most acceptable of the bad news.

As for the rest? Well, Sabathia left after four innings with what’s being called a sore hip. He said his MRI was clean and hopes to avoid the disabled list.

Drury had a migraine and blurry vision, and Wade got knocked out thanks to flu-like symptoms. Chapman acknowledged that his velocity was down but said he felt OK otherwise. And Sanchez had cramps; he said doctors will advise him again on Saturday, depending on how he feels.

Aaron Boone said the team needs to further discuss whether they need to call in reinforcements for Saturday’s day game. He added that they haven’t yet made any disabled list decisions.

“They’re all tough,” Aaron Judge said of his teammates. “We’ve just gotta bounce back. We’ve got to be a tough team. We had a total of four guys come out of the game. It’s tough. [But] it’s early, just a couple of games into it.”

Got all that? Good. Now for the actual baseball.

With the Yankees down 3-2 in the eighth inning after three solo homers off Sabathia — two by Manny Machado and one by Chris Davis — Gregorius lined Miguel Castro’s sinker deep into the seats in right to tie it.

Gregorius tried to score on a potential wild pitch with two outs in the 11th, but catcher Caleb Joseph retrieved the ball quickly and made a perfect backhand flip to reliever Mychal Givens, who went down, blocked the plate and made the tag as Gregorius slid in headfirst.

Joseph nearly put the Orioles ahead in the 13th, hitting a drive to right on which 6-7 Aaron Judge leaped at the rightfield wall, at the right side of the auxiliary scoreboard, and needed every inch of that height to take away a go-ahead home run.

In the end, though, that play only extended the Yankees’ misery. Sanchez went down with cramps and Judge couldn’t do anything about Alvarez’s drive over the scoreboard and into the right-centerfield stands, just to the right of the Yankees’ bullpen, off Jonathan Holder.

Before the grand slam, Trey Mancini walked, Machado singled for his fourth hit and Ronald Torreyes threw the ball in the dirt on Jonathan Schoop’s sacrifice bunt. After Adam Jones struck out, Alvarez launched Holder’s first pitch.

Eight Yankees threw 265 pitches and struck out 16. Six Orioles threw 218 pitches.

And just like that, the Orioles ended a game that didn’t start out all that great for the Yankees, either, given the Sabathia injury.

Sabathia said he felt an unusual twinge after throwing his last warm-up pitch in the third. “I’ve never felt that spot before ever throwing a baseball,” he said, though he added that he is hopeful that he can make his next start.

Added Boone: “It’s one of those where you exert everyone and you’re losing guys like that, [and] it hurts when you lose it.”

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.