Yankees Drop Series to Orioles After a Horrendous Offensive Performance
Jordan Montgomery got the start for the Yankees in Game 1 of a three game set against the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards. Monty looked sharp in his second outing of the season. He threw five shutout innings in this appearance. Sadly, the Yankees offense could not get anything going. The trend of the Yankee bats going silent when Monty is pitching continued. They only pushed across one run and it came off of a Giancarlo Stanton broken bat single in the third inning. The bats were dead for the rest of the night. Wandy Peralta came in after Monty and threw 1.1 innings and allowed the game tying run on a Jorge Mateo RBI single in the seventh. Loaisiga came in and threw 0.2 scoreless innings after Wandy. Miguel Castro then threw a shutout inning followed by a shutout inning from Lucas Luetge. The Yankees' pathetic offense was unable to push across a second run so the game went into extra innings. Even with the runner on second base the Yankees could not score.
Clarke Schmidt pitched the tenth inning and held the Orioles to keep the game tied. Once again the Yankees could not produce any kind of offense and the game stayed tied after the top of the eleventh. In the bottom of the eleventh Clarke Schmidt walked two batters and was pulled from the game. Aroldis Chapman was called on to come into a bases loaded and one out situation. An interesting choice from Boone considering Chapman could not find the strike zone the night before. Chapman struck out Cedric Mullins to bring up Ramon Urias with the bases loaded and two outs in a tie game. Chapman walked Urias and the winning run came in to score. The Orioles took game one of the series on a walk off walk in one of the most embarrassing offensive performances from the Yankees you will ever see.
Jameson Taillon toed the slab in Game 2 of the three game set in Baltimore. Taillon had to deal with a rain delay before the start of this game, but nevertheless he made his second start of the season. In the third inning the Orioles took a 2-0 lead on a Cedric Mulls two run home run. After another rain delay the Yankees took the lead in the fifth inning. Anthony Rizzo hit an RBI single, Giancarlo Stanton then ripped an RBI double, and Josh Donaldson capped off the inning with a two run homer for his first home run of the season. Now with a 4-2 lead, Taillon came back out for the fifth after the second rain delay. Taillon was pulled after 4.2 innings allowing two earned runs. This solid performance was another positive sign from Taillon. Besides his one mistake to Mullins, his outing was fantastic. JP Sears was called on to make his second career outing, and he threw a scoreless inning to get the Yankees out of a jam. In the sixth inning Jose Trevino scored on a wild pitch to make it 5-2 Yankees. Mike King came on after Sears and threw two shutout innings, and Clay Holmes finished the game out with the save. This 5-2 Yankees victory tied up the series heading into the rubber match on Sunday.
Nestor Cortes was on the bump in the rubber game of this three game set in Baltimore. Nestor Cortes proved that 2021 was no joke, and he is the real deal. In this outing, Nestor was magnificent yet again. Cortes threw five shutout innings with TWELVE strikeouts. Cortes was absolutely dominant. Unfortunately, his outing was completely wasted because the Yankees incompetent offense was unable to push one lousy run across the board. The Yankees offense continued its huge struggles in this game as they wasted yet another brilliant pitching performance. Chad Green came into the game after Cortes and threw 1.2 scoreless innings. Jonathan Loaisiga got the final out of the eighth and came back out for the ninth in a 0-0 ballgame. Loaisiga was not sharp.
He just did not have it as the Orioles exploded for a five run inning. The Yankees trailed 5-0 heading into the bottom of the ninth, and they went down without a fight as they lost this game 5-0. They dropped the series against the pitiful Baltimore Orioles because the Yankee offense was unable to provide any production whatsoever. The Yankees just absolutely can not lose a series to the Orioles. This embarrassing series from the Yankees should be a wake up call to the team. They need to figure it out. It is still extremely early and there is more than enough time to figure it out, but the Yankees need to do just that. Figure it out. Because this is not just one bad series. These are the same issues we have seen for the past two seasons. Hopefully the Yankees turn it around in their next series which is against the Detroit Tigers.
By : Riley Briggs