Saturday’s Matinee Was A Horror Show
Saturday’s 9-0 loss to the New York Yankees (44-32) by the Baltimore Orioles featured alot of things, all bad. It had injury news, a poor start by Zach Eflin (6-4), four Yankees homeruns, two Orioles errors and the Orioles were no-hit through seven innings.
Prior to the game it was revealed that Adley Rutschman was placed on the 10-day IL with a left oblique injury; not a surprise since he was a late scratch on Friday for the same issue. During the game Jordan Westburg experienced left hand discomfort from a jammed finger (sound familiar?) and was removed from the game and pinch-hit for by Coby Mayo in the third inning. Westburg appeared to suffer the injury when sliding headfirst into second base on a steal of second in the first inning. The base did move when his oven mitt covered left hand made contact.
Eflin lasted just 3.0 innings and threw 90 pitches (52 strikes) in allowing 6 runs on 10 hits with 2 walks, 4 strikeouts and a wild pitch. He surrendered homeruns to Trent Grisham, former Orioles farmhand JC Escarra and Ben Rice.
The Yankees fourth homerun was hit by Anthony Volpe off of Andrew Kittredge in the fifth inning.
A throwing error by Cedric Mullins in the third inning allowed runners to advance a base on a sac fly and a fielding error by Jackson Holliday in the fifth led to an unearned run.
New York starter Clarke Schmidt (4-3) no-hit the Birds for 7.0 innings, an impressive outing considering he needed 33 pitches to get through the top of the first. He left the game after tossing 103 pitches (70 strikes) having walked 2 batters, striking out 5 and hitting 1 batter.
The lone Baltimore hit was produced by former Yankee All-Star Gary Sanchez. He led off the eighth inning with a hit to center off of New York reliever JT Brubaker, who heard quite s few boos upon giving up the hit.
An interesting footnote to the Yankees’ homeruns is the amount of criticism the right field dimensions get when New York puts a homerun out there yet the same dimensions were not an issue on Friday when Ramon Urias deposited his homerun there.
The game also gave us an inning pitched by a position player. Luis Vazquez pitched the eighth for Baltimore and walked 1 but a double play allowed him to face the minimum. He threw eight pitches (3 strikes) and topped out at 41 mph. Play-by-play announcer Kevin Brown’s enthusiastic screeching at the double play was a bit over the top and unwarranted but hit volume and hyperbole has increased recently.
2025 Record: 33-43
Next Game: Sun. 6/22 @ 11:35 am vs. Yankees in New York (Roku TV)