Dominating awful Orioles key for Yankees to win AL East
Yankees' DJ LeMahieu doubles against the Baltimore Oriolesduring the seventh inning of an MLB baseball game at Yankee Stadium on Thursday, April 28, 2022. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The Yankees are atop the AL East after Thursday’s 10-5 victory completed a three-game sweep of the defensively-challenged Orioles.
Coincidence?
Probably not. Because the surest path to this division crown still runs through lowly Baltimore, which typically serves as the great separator between the East giants, year-after-year.
Out of respect for their opponents, the Yankees (13-6) aren’t big fans of the concept. Before this Orioles series began, manager Aaron Boone was asked about taking advantage of these games -- especially after dropping two of three at Camden Yards a week earlier -- and he didn’t hide his disdain for the question.
“It kind of irks me when I see that,” Boone said. “We got to be good over 162. The amount of declarative statements that happen early in the season never ceases to amaze me. You want to win the American League East, you got to be a beast for 162 games. If last year taught us anything, it’s that if we don’t play our best -- I don’t care who we’re playing -- it’s going to be hard for us to win.”
Maybe the past two seasons, when the Yankees went a combined 18-11 against the Orioles. But this year? Not so much. And that was certainly the case Thursday, when Boone & Co. had to do little more than watch the O’s self-destruct in committing five errors.
Don’t be fooled by the final score. The Yankees did trail, 2-0, but reeled off 10 unanswered runs -- six of them unearned -- before mop-up reliever Ron Marinaccio made a mess in the ninth, then was demoted after the game. Forcing Boone to bring Lucas Luetge into this blowout, as well as having to get Aroldis Chapman up, was not the impression Marinaccio wanted to leave on his way out the door, but the performance seemed on brand for an ugly afternoon that stretched nearly four hours (3:51).
No matter. Thanks largely to the Orioles’ inability to catch or throw, the Yankees were able to cruise to their season-best sixth consecutive win and first sweep of Baltimore since September of 2020. Every starter had at least one hit with the exception of Joey Gallo, who whiffed three times, and Aaron Judge smacked his fifth homer to go with four RBIs on the day.
Judge’s three-run blast in the eighth turned out to be the decisive blow, but slapping the ball around inside the fences worked well, too. Watching the Orioles fumble around made you wonder if one of these grounders or line drives would eventually wind up in their gloves by accident.
The Yankees scored four unearned runs to take the lead in the fifth inning on a rally fueled by a pair of errors by third baseman Kelvin Gutierrez and shortstop Jorge Mateo. They tacked on another run in the sixth, thanks in part to reliever Mike Baumann’s throwing gaffe, and DJ LeMahieu sparked the Yankees in the seventh by turning a grounder off the glove of shortstop Jorge Mateo into a double. That wasn’t technically an error, but leftfielder Austin Mays had to be positioned in Yonkers for how long it took him to retrieve the ball.
The lesson here? Productive stuff can happen when you put the ball in play and the Orioles, who rank second in MLB with 19 errors, were more than willing to cooperate Thursday.
“Making contact is always a good thing,” Boone said afterward, “within the context of controlling the strike zone. I think that’s what we’ve done a better job at over the last week or so. I feel like the swing decisions have started to really strengthen and that gives you the chance to make the kind of contact that you want to.
“But there’s no question, there were some really good situational at-bats today and over the past week. That’s been an area of improvement.”
No surprise that Anthony Rizzo was again a big contributor, and with two more hits, including a run-scoring single in the fifth, he has a slash line of .382/.400/.912 over the last eight games and leads the Yankees overall with 19 RBIs. He chipped in during the four-run fifth, after the two errors and Judge smoking a 101-mph ground ball that caromed off the backhanded glove of second baseman Rougned Odor.
“Whenever you get extra outs,” Rizzo said, “you want to cash in on those.”
The Yankees did that often, even with two of their more reliable hitters, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Jose Trevino, getting the the day off. Tim Locastro took advantage of the start in centerfield by reaching base three times and scoring twice and Marwin Gonzalez -- filling in for IKF -- had an RBI double and sacrifice fly.
“Everybody’s doing their job,” Locastro said.
And that includes defensively. For the 12th straight game, the Yankees also did not commit an error, their longest such streak since 2013. It was one of the many reasons Thursday they kept rolling over the Orioles, a momentum the Yankees hope can help them eventually win the AL East title.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
