Yankees 6, Orioles 3, and the doubleheader split felt like a win all on its own after the way Game 1 went.
New York dropped the opener 10-2 earlier Friday at the Stadium, the kind of game you'd like to forget by the time the tarp came off for the nightcap. A crowd of 46,656 stuck around for both ends of it. The Yankees obliged them. Ryan McMahon's fifth-inning double got it started, a middle-innings surge put it away, and Will Warren came out of the bullpen and made sure none of it slipped away late.
Two hours and 56 minutes after first pitch, it was over. Baltimore had a couple of late swings, but nothing close.
The Double That Started It
Nothing happened for four and a half innings. Brandon Young and Ryan Yarbrough traded zeroes, both starters working around traffic, and then McMahon lined one to center with Austin Wells aboard in the fifth. 2-4, 2B, RBI -- and just like that, a scoreless game had a pulse.
It was the single biggest swing of the night by win probability, a 16.3 percent jump for the Yankees in one at-bat. Everything after was New York building on it.
Bats Wake Up, Volpe Doubles the Damage
The sixth is where it got out of hand. Spencer Jones singled home Ramos on a ball Rece Hinds couldn't handle cleanly (fielding error charged), and two batters later Anthony Volpe roped a ground-rule double down the right-field line that scored two more. 4-0, just like that, and Young was done after five -- a hard-luck five innings, one earned run, six strikeouts, the kind of start that deserves a better final line than an "L."
(Young's own day was fine. The three runs that put this one out of reach came in after he'd already left the mound.)
New York tacked on two more in the seventh -- Ramos singled home McMahon, then García singled home Ben Rice -- and by the time Baltimore came up in the ninth trailing 6-1, the only drama left was whether the Orioles could make it interesting.
They tried. Dylan Beavers led off the ninth with a 368-foot, 105 mph blast to right, the only home run either team hit all night (the Yankees, for what it's worth, went deep zero times and still put up six runs). Alexander Cornielle walked Alonso, Coby Mayo singled for his third hit of the day, and two batters later Leody Taveras doubled Alonso home to make it 6-3 -- his second double of the game. Cornielle got the last two outs by strikeout, and that was that.
Warren Takes Over
The name on the win, though, is Warren. Yarbrough opened with 2.1 scoreless innings (5 K) before handing it to Warren, who worked 3.2 innings of relief and struck out seven without issuing a walk -- 54 pitches, 39 of them strikes, three hits allowed, zero runs.
By win probability added, it was the best individual performance by anyone in either dugout that night, Yankees or Orioles. That's exactly the kind of relief work you want walking into a Wild Card round, and it came from a guy filling a role nobody drew up for him in spring.
The Bigger Picture
The win pushes New York to 93-68, good for second in the AL East, 4.5 games behind Tampa Bay -- not that the division was ever really in play at this point. What matters more is the split locks in the Yankees' spot as the AL's No. 4 seed, which means a Wild Card date with the Red Sox -- the same team New York beat in a three-game Wild Card series last year.
Nobody's circling the loss in Game 1. Not with a win like this one to end the day, and not with a rematch like that waiting.
Get through Baltimore, get the seed you wanted, and let the real stuff start Tuesday.
Jimmy writes the Bronx Pinstripes game recap after every Yankees game. Beat-reporter pacing, fan's heartbeat. He calls opposing players by last name and has no patience for dead-air innings.
