Baltimore Orioles at New York Yankees: Series Recap

Game 1: 8/2/21, 7:10 PM (Orioles win 7-1)

Yanks return home and put up a pathetic performance. Yankee starter Andrew Heaney was awful in his Yankee debut, serving up 4 solo shots in 4 innings. Heaney looked very sharp in the first 2 innings but fell apart, he just sucks. New York’s offense somehow only had 3 hits and 1 run off of O’s starter Jorge Lopez, who had a 6.19 ERA coming in. Joey Gallo, Gleyber Torres, and Brett Gardner were the only batters with a hit and the only run to come across was due to a sac fly by Anthony Rizzo. Just a bad game all around. Heaney took the loss and Lopez got the win for Baltimore.

Game 2: 8/3/21, 7:10 PM (Yankees win 13-1)

The inconsistencies continue as after only having 1 run and 3 hits last night, they come out tonight with 13 runs and 15 hits. Gerrit Cole was supposed to start this game but unfortunately tested positive for COVID-19 so the Yankees called up highly touted prospect Luis Gil who put up Gerrit Cole numbers. He tossed 6 shut out innings as he was pumping triple digits all night on the fastball and also displayed a 95 MPH change-up which is unheard of. Yanks got on the board early and often and they poured it on Baltimore starter Alex Wells. In the 2nd, Torres would double scoring 1. Next inning, LeMahieu would double scoring 1, followed by RBI singles by Rizzo and Stanton, another RBI double courtesy of Gary Sanchez, and then Torres would hit a sac fly, Yankees put up 5 runs in the 3rd inning making it an early 6-0 lead. New York would tack on 3 more in the 4th thanks to a Giancarlo Stanton 3-run blast to make it 9-0 and basically put the nail in the coffin. It would stay 9-0 until the 8th, when the O’s scored their lone run on an RBI double by Ryan Mountcastle. Every Yankee pitcher tonight was called up from the minors and they all pitched well. Yankee reliever Steve Ridings came out pumping gas as a 6’8 pitcher, the tallest pitcher in the majors as of right now. He struck out the side with ease. New York offense was not satisfied with 9 runs, they proceeded to score 4 more in the 8th, Tyler Wade actually produced and did something good as he roped a 2-run double down the line extending the lead to 11-1, later in the inning, Rizzo would groundout scoring a run and Aaron Judge finally hit a homer as he was on a pretty long streak of being homerless. Gil picked up his 1st of many major league wins and Wells picked up the loss.

Game 3: 8/4/21, 7:10 PM (Yankees win 10-3)

Another series win in the books as New York takes game 3. Starter Jameson Tallion continued his streak of dominance as he tossed another gem. His line: 6.1 innings, 4 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 10 K. He’s been unbelievable since since his first start in July. Baltimore actually led 3-0 early then it went crashing down. O’s 1st baseman Mountcastle got them on the board with a sac fly in the 1st inning followed by an RBI single by Austin Hays making it 2-0 early. Joey Gallo actually made an error earlier in the inning making the 2nd run unearned. Again in the 4th, Mountcastle would smash a solo homer making it 3-0, he really had a great series in New York. It was came crashing down for Baltimore as that would be the last time they score. Yanks got on the board in the bottom of the 4th via Anthony Rizzo’s 1st homer at Yankee Stadium off Matt Harvey cutting it to 3-1, later in the inning Torres singled in Gallo bringing in another run as the Yanks inch closer. New York would tie the game in the 5th, LeMahieu continued his recent little hot stretch bringing in Higashioka with a single. The meltdown would start in the 7th, after back to back walks by Higashioka and Sanchez, DJ would bring in another run on a single scoring pinch runner Jonathan Davis giving New York a 4-3 lead igniting a crowd of over 30k. A few batters later Gallo would walk to load the bases, and Giancarlo Stanton would hit a bases clearing bloop double into no mans land making it a 7-3 lead and the next batter Torres would lace an RBI double scoring Stanton. Multiple walks and some timely hitting sure did the trick. They weren’t done yet either in the 8th, Davis and Sanchez would both single and then again LeMahieu would clear the bases with a double making it 10-3 Yanks. DJ had a huge day at the plate and a very good series, could be a sign of him getting hot. The Yankees bullpen was solid in relief of Tallion. Loaisiga picked up the win and Cole Sulser took the loss.

My thoughts:

Great series win, kind of disappointed we wouldn’t sweep but we’ll take wins. Yanks have the best record in baseball since July 4th at 18-7. All of a sudden, New York is only 6 games out of 1st place in the division and 2 games out of the wild card. Yanks are getting hit a perfect time as they’ve got some tough games coming up starting this weekend.

What’s next?

Baltimore heads back home as they welcome in the Tampa Bay Rays in a 3 game set. The Yankees stay home for a huge 4 game set against the Seattle Mariners. These 2 teams have some bad blood from earlier this season so we’ll see if anything spills over but Seattle is also sitting 1 game behind the Yanks in the wild card race so this is a big series.