Orioles Postpone the Party Again, Continue to Own the Yankees

Well, that’s two chances to put away the AL East, and two failures for the Yankees thanks to a horrendous outing from Marcus Stroman, some awful fielding, and basically nothing from the lineup outside of guys named Aaron Judge and Juan Soto. The Yankees have effectively re-energized the previously comatose Orioles, a team they could see in the postseason. Lets get to it.

Sept. 25: Orioles 9, Yankees 7

Gee, what a fun day in the world of the Yankees, huh?

In the morning, out of nowhere, Nestor Cortes - who has been their best starting pitcher over the past month - ends up in a medical facility getting an MRI on his pitching elbow. What? Literally, there wasn’t even a hint of a problem and all of a sudden, his pitching arm is suddenly broken? Now he’s on the 15-day injured list and his season is almost certainly over.

“It sucks,” Cortes said. “It sucks that I’m in this position right now to where I can’t help the team. Obviously with what I dealt with last year (a rotator cuff strain) and how well I prepared this offseason to pitch this season and how well it’s been going for me the last five or six starts … I finally felt like things were clicking for me.”

So with Cortes scratched, Aaron Boone turned to Marcus Stroman and in that moment, there was no doubt in my mind, maybe yours as well, that the Yankees had no chance Wednesday night. And as so often is the case, I was right.

Stroman has essentially been a batting practice pitcher for the better part of three months and sure enough, the Orioles - who have been horrible on offense lately, at least until they showed up in the Bronx - surely appreciated how he lit their bats on fire.

They lit him up for six runs on 10 hits - hey, at least they were all singles - in 3.1 innings. The first inning was utterly ridiculous as the first six men singled, three of them scored, and within 15 minutes of first pitch, it was never a contest thereafter. Well, at least until the Yankees put together a fake rally in the ninth that made the score close.

Stroman faced 19 batters and 10 of them got hits. That was his contribution in a game where the Yankees were trying to wrap up the AL East, and failed for the second night in a row.

“I was fine, there’s no excuses,” Stroman said. “I have to be better out there at the end of the day. Regardless of rhythm or when I last threw, I have to do a better job of keeping my team in the game. That’s pretty much all it comes down to.”

The only good news to come from this is that Boone has to realize that Stroman cannot be trusted on the playoff roster and even with the Cortes injury, Stroman’s season should be done. You don’t need more than four starters in the postseason and the Yankees have Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon, Luis Gil and Clarke Schmidt. So Stroman and his egregious 1.470 WHIP, third-worst in MLB among pitchers with at least 150 innings pitched, can watch the rest of the season from the dugout.

“Nothing’s been easy for us this year,” Boone said. “Shouldn’t expect it to be now. But we’ve persevered and grinded our way through all of it. … We’ll be ready to go (Thursday).

Here are my observations:

➤ I have never wavered on this point: The Orioles are the better team. The only reason the Yankees are just one win away from capturing the AL East is because the Orioles were pure horseshit for about three months, much of that having to do with a much longer injury list than the Yankees dealt with this season. But now they’re getting their guys back, and they have continued their ownership of the Yankees as they won for the eighth time in 12 games.

➤ When you look at these teams, if you know your baseball, the Orioles have better players at six and maybe seven of the nine positions. The only Yankees you’d take are Judge and Soto, and even with Soto over Anthony Santander, yeah, Soto is the better hitter, but Santander is the better fielder and he has 44 homers and 100 RBI. As for the pitching, it’s actually pretty close both in the rotation and bullpen.

Here’s the lineup comparison:

• C: Austin Wells or Adley Rutschman? Of course it’s Rutschman.

• 1B: Anthony Rizzo or Ryan Mountcastle? Mountcastle, hands down.

• 2B: Gleyber Torres or Jordan Westburg? Easy choice, Westburg.

• 3B: Jazz Chisholm or Ramon Urias? Close, could go either way.

• SS: Anthony Volpe or Gunnar Henderson? This comparison is laughable.

• LF: Jasson Dominguez/Alex Verdugo or Colton Cowser? Right now, Dominguez isn’t ready, Verdugo is awful, and Cowser will probably win the AL rookie of the year award.

• CF: Judge or Cedric Mullins? Obviously Judge.

• RF: Soto or Santander? As I said, Soto, but it’s not a rout.

• DH: Giancarlo Stanton or Ryan O’Hearn? Give me O’Hearn over the one-trick pony Stanton who can’t run, can’t play the field, misses at least a month every year, and goes into month-long slumps.

➤ All that to point out that the Yankees are extremely fortunate to still be leading by four games with four to play. I have to believe they’re going to win one more game at some point this week, but I’m willing to bet my hard-earned money it won’t happen Thursday, not against Corbin Burnes and the rejuvenated Orioles. In all likelihood they’re gonna have to beat the Pirates to clinch this thing, and then we’ll see if they can also finish ahead of the Guardians to clinch homefield throughout the AL playoffs. Then again, they have not been good at home all year as they now sit at a disappointing 42-35 in the Bronx.

➤ The first three singles off Stroman loaded the bases with no outs in the first, and then Cowser his a fly ball into the left field corner and once again, Dominguez looked like a Little Leaguer out there and he botched and it fell for a hit. It was a brutal play which should have been scored an error, but he botched it so badly that he didn’t touch it. That scored two runs, though the Yankees did throw out Santander trying to move to third. No matter because two more singles and a groundout scored the third run.

➤ I hate to say it, but Dominguez has been terrible since he was called up. He’s hitting .200 with only two homers in 51 plate appearances, and as I said, his play in left field has been abysmal. “No excuse, that ball has to be caught 100 percent of the time,” Dominguez said. “I lost it, but that ball has to be caught.”

➤ The Yankees had a chance to answer in the bottom of the first, but after walks to Soto and Judge, Wells grounded into a double play. He has been flat out lousy at the plate and if he doesn’t pick it up, playoff teams will keep walking Soto and Judge every chance they get. Hell, that might happen anyway because no one else, outside of Torres, has hit a lick.

➤ It was still 3-1 in the fourth when Stroman gave up three more hits including a two-run single to Henderson. Clayton Beeter came in and gave up back-to-back RBI doubles to Santander and Cowser and at 7-1, it was over. For good measure, the Orioles tacked on a run in the fifth against Beeter who was pretty much as bad as Stroman as he faced eight men and four reached. Cody Poteet gave up the last run in the eighth in his first appearance since June 12, but he also ate 3.1 innings and saved the bullpen for Thursday.

➤ As for the Yankees scoring, Volpe came through with a two-out RBI single in the second when it was still a game, so that was good. Soto hit a two-run homer in the fifth off Orioles starter Zach Eflin after it was already 8-1. And then in the ninth, a fake rally when it was 9-3 as Soto had an RBI single and Judge crushed a three-run homer. Here, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde stopped screwing around with low leverage relievers, brought in Keegin Akin, and he retired Wells and Stanton on pop outs to end it.